What is Pack.png in Minecraft? Popular fan project becomes a new painting

Minecraft recently added five new paintings that players can craft and hang. One of the paintings shows two villagers standing outside their house, resembling the classic painting ‘American Gothic’ by Grant Wood. But another seemingly simple painting has captured the attention of long-time Minecraft players. The painting titled ‘Unpacked,’ shows a hill with a few trees, a beach, and a small waterfall coming from the hill.

But here’s what makes it special. The same image can be seen in the file ‘Pack.png’ in the previous versions of the game. This article explores more.

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Pack.png in Minecraft

The 'Pack.png' Painting (Image via X/Minecraft)

Here’s a small introduction to what Pack.png exactly was; in the earlier build of the game (up until release 1.13.2), if players selected settings and then chose the resource pack option, the default resource pack would show an icon with the same image of the hill featuring trees and a beach nearby. This is what the image file ‘Pack.png’ was.

Another place where players would find the same image was the server selection screen. The image is shown in black and white here. Naturally, some players wanted to know exactly where this place is in Minecraft. And so, the search began.

After years of searching, players finally found the exact location of the hill with the waterfront, beach, and the small waterfall in the game. The seed for the exact location is 3257840388504953787 and the coordinates are x=49, z=0. Do note that newer versions of the game will not generate this area. It only works on Alpha 1.2.2a up to Beta 1.7.3.

The actual location of the image 'pack.png' (Image via YouTube/SalC1)

Anyone who wants to find this place can do so by downloading the older version of the game. Minecraft Launcher allows players to download specific versions of the title.

So after almost a year of finding the area, the seed was discovered and the mystery of ‘Pack.png’ was uncovered. As an Easter egg, the artist at Mojang Studios, Sarah Boeving, added this painting with the title ‘Unpacked,’ which works as a pun; ‘Pack.png’ was unpacked when the actual location was found.

Players might have also noticed the texture and the colors that look a bit off in the painting. The greens and blues are more vibrant compared to the colors of the game. That’s because earlier builds of Minecraft had more vibrant and deeper colors than newer versions, especially for trees and water.