Situational Silence
Java mod listed for Minecraft 1.19–1.20. Download on the author's site.
⬇ Download on CurseForge

This mod was originally made for the "Cold Mist" modpack. Click on the banner to visit the original project page. You can freely use this mod in your projects; just make sure to credit me in some way.
How it works (picture):

Quick explanation:
This mod creates tension when going into caves or at night by making all of the common hostile mobs completely silent by default (hunting mode), so you will never know if there is something in the dark or not.
To make things even scarier, mobs can rarely make some noises!
They kind of say to the player, "We are SOMEWHWERE here, but you don`t know how many of us exist and what we are doing". This "hunting mode" is not permanent though; you can remove this state from a mob by being attacked by him, looking at him, or just waiting until you hear the steps behind you and then run.
This simple manipulation with sound creates sound jumpscares and makes the player feel nervous because he can no longer fully understand the situation around him.
More technical explanation:
Every mob listed in the config spawns with NBT "Silent = true". (this NBT is a vanilla feature)
If the mob is attacked/attacks/is being looked at, the effect "unmuted" applies to it, setting NBT "Silent = false".
When the "unmuted" effect runs out, the NBT of the mob is set back to "Silent = true".
There is a really small chance every ~1200 ticks that the "unmuted" effect applies to them for a second or so to scare the player with a bit of unnecessary noise.
*You can also find technical "muted" effect in this mod that does nothing by itself and is only used to not change the NBT of the mob every tick while "unmuted" effect is applied (fixes some issues with skeletons)
FAQ:
Q1: Is this mod compatible with the X mod?
A1: It is compatible with any mod, unless it changes how NBT tags ("Silent" specifically), potion effects, or Minecraft command syntax work.
Q1: Config?
A1: Sure, you can configure which mobs are affected by the mod.
Q2: Will this mod be ported to the X version?
A2: Probably not. BUT recently I made an exception for 1.20.1, as it appears to be the most relevant modding version of Minecraft even after the 1.21 release, and will probably stay this way until Mojang goes back to a yearly updates system.
- Edition: Minecraft Java
- File type: .jar
- Minecraft versions listed: 1.20.1, 1.19.2
- How to install: Install the matching mod loader (Forge, Fabric or NeoForge) for your Minecraft version. → Download the .jar. → Put it in the .minecraft/mods folder and launch that loader profile.
- Where to get it: Opens on CurseForge — not every file is mirrored on our own servers.
Install steps are the general flow for this file type — How to install Minecraft Java mods & modpacks walks through it step by step.
Situational Silence is a free Minecraft Java mod. Compatible with Minecraft 1.20.1, 1.19.2. Downloaded 45,974 times (via CurseForge). Download it and open it directly in the game.