As you may have seen via social media or the newest Minecraft Monthly, we’ve had some very exciting snapshots with features that will officially be added in the next game drop. We figured we’d do a quick recap of these shiny new things so you can be all up-to-date on what to expect to see in the near future.
First up, Mojang is introducing new cow and pig variants. Both mobs will now have a cold and a warm variant that will spawn in cold and warm biomes respectively. You can still find the original variants, which have been renamed to temperate pigs and temperate cows, in the similarly classified temperate biomes. Also good to know: when bred by a player, the baby’s variant type will be determined randomly, based on what variant its parents were. While they originally didn’t spawn here naturally, you’ll now be able to find these and other farm animals in the Badlands as well.
Speaking of the Badlands, together with the Desert biome, these are also getting an update. Sand, red sand, terracotta, and dead bushes can now play ambient sounds like sandy winds and crickets. Some of these can only be heard in Deserts and Badlands, but other sounds are tied to the blocks, so you’ll be able to hear them whenever there are enough of those blocks close by.
While you’re exploring to hear those new sounds, make sure to keep an eye on any forest you come across. Any leaves will now emit falling leaves particles, pretty much like cherry leaves already did, adding a bit more ambience to your tree locations. On top of that, you can now find wildflowers on the ground in Birch Forests, Old Growth Birch Forests and Meadows. In Forests, Dark Forests and Wooded Badlands you will find leaf litter instead. Both of these work just like pink petals; you can place them in multiple directions and you can have up to four of these in one block space.
Additionally, you can now also find the regular bush in those forests as well as in plains, windswept hills, and other green biomes. Don’t confuse it with the dead bush, as this one is actually very green! Grass blocks in swamps and riverbanks, on the other hand, will spawn firefly bushes. These emit a light level of 2, but when it’s dark they’ll come to life even more with their glowing firefly particles.
There have also been some smaller changes, like how Woodland Mansions now can generate in Pale Garden biomes and how beacons can now be seen from even further away – if the player’s render distance allows. The recipe for the Lodestone has changed, making it a whole lot cheaper to craft one, and they can also be found in Ruined Portal chests. And there were even more small quality of life changes and bug fixes, but those you can find in Minecraft’s own change logs.
Now you may ask: ‘Didn’t I also hear something about changes in movement?’ You’d be correct about that, but the most impactful ones have been reverted after feedback from the community, including the change in crouch-sprinting that was part of version 1.21.4 already. The movement bugs these changes were meant to fix may be revisited some time in the future, but most likely not before the next game drop.
And with that, we’ve covered the most important and exciting features that we know will appear in the next game drop. When that will be exactly, we don’t know yet, but speculation says it might be as early as March or maybe even February. What new feature can you not wait to see added to the game?
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