Java Edition unused features

Since the beginning of Minecraft's development, there have been a number of features that were proposed by Notch or other Mojang AB developers that were ultimately unimplemented.

Note that this page only documents features that were planned at one time but have since been cancelled or fallen into limbo; features that are currently definitively planned for inclusion instead should be listed on Upcoming features.

Partially implemented/Unused
Several planned features made it as far as being partially implemented (e.g. by having images created and added to the sprite sheets, or behavior code added to the game), or even fully functioning in-game, before being dropped.

Brick pyramid


For a brief time, brick pyramids were large structures that generated far away from the spawn point. These pyramids were completely solid; they had no interior rooms. A strange quality about these pyramids is that if one dug under it, a layer of dirt and stone extended under the pyramid. This suggests it spawned right on top of the terrain instead of being a complete pyramid with the bottom underground (such as desert temples). Pyramids were removed in later versions of Infdev.

Obsidian wall
Obsidian walls were used in Infdev to mark the positions of the cardinal directions. This created two intersecting planes extending just above the surface of the solid material that surrounds them. This has long since been removed.

Lantern
Lanterns were originally planned to be used as permanent light sources (and torches to be made temporary), but Lanterns were officially denied by Notch at MineCon 2011. Instead, other types of lighting would be added; such as Redstone Lamps and glowstone.

Crying Obsidian
Crying Obsidian was a planned feature for Minecraft for setting a new spawn point. This has been replaced with Beds, as sleeping in one will set your spawn point beside it.



Gear
Gears were supposed to be added in Indev but never were, though (when hacked into the inventory) they did nothing when placed on a block, however, there would be an "invisible" block that would be able to be stood upon. They were effectively removed from the game when Redstone took its data value and its sprite was removed from the game.



Leather-chain armor
Leather-chain armor existed as a series of sprites in the items.png file, between leather and chainmail armor, and in place of gold/diamond armor.



Ruby
On May 21, 2012, Jeb released a screenshot of himself testing the trading system. At this time, what would become Emerald Ore in 1.3 was Ruby ore. The previous Ruby texture remains in the items.png file, above the Emerald texture. It is unknown if the texture will ever be used. Dinnerbone stated in a forum post that they went with emeralds instead of rubies at the last minute because he is color-blind and he had a hard time spotting the difference between ruby ore and redstone ore.The texture for ruby can still be found in minecraft.jar textures items.



Unused potions
The unused potions can be seen in the inventory GUI files but some effects are not present. However, in snapshot 12w39a the custom potions feature was introduced. It was the only way to access the unused potion effects. These are the unused potion effects.


 * Health Boost (Gives you extra hearts that are red; Replaced with Absorption, with yellow extra hearts)~
 * Mining Fatigue (slows down mining speed)~
 * Stinky (No Effect)-
 * Acrid (No Effect)-
 * Harsh (No Effect)-
 * Rank (No Effect)-
 * Odorless (No Effect)-
 * Foul (No Effect)-
 * Potent (No Effect)-
 * Sparkling (No Effect)-
 * Cordial (No Effect)-
 * Refined (No Effect)-
 * Dashing (No Effect)-
 * Charming (No Effect)-
 * Fancy (No Effect)-
 * Elegant (No Effect)-
 * Gross (No Effect)-
 * Debonair (No Effect)-
 * Suave (No Effect)-
 * Smooth (No Effect)-
 * Buttered (No Effect)-
 * Bungling (No Effect)-
 * Bulky (No Effect)-
 * Flat (No Effect)-
 * Thin (No Effect)-
 * Artless (No Effect)-
 * Diffuse (No Effect)-
 * Milky (No Effect)-
 * Clear (No Effect)-
 * Bland (No Effect)-
 * Uninteresting (No Effect)-

These potion effects with a ~ after them can be obtained through the custom potion feature along with the /effect command.

These potion effects with a - after them can only be obtained using the /give [player] 373 1 [16-thousand #] command

A more detailed list can be found at Potions.

Horse saddle
Horse saddles were items that were added along with horses that worked just like regular saddles, but for horses instead of pigs. Taming a horse was required before putting a saddle on it. These saddles used the same texture from the Mo' Creatures mod just like the Horse Armor that was also added, which has a dark brown color rather than the burnt orange of the existing saddle. The horse saddle would have been craftable.

Horse saddle items were later removed from the game, and the same saddles (found in dungeons) are now used for both pigs and horses.



Fish
Originally, fish were planned to be implemented in the Halloween Update, but, since Notch had limited time, he was only able to add fish as an item. Jon Kagstrom has stated he would like to add fish. This has been partially added in 1.7.2 with the addition of salmon and pufferfish and clownfish, and the fish particle effect when catching a fish.

Pigman
Pigmen are Mobs with the same shape as the player but the skin of a Pig. Notch mentioned that he might add them as Villagers in NPC Villages (which didn't happen, in place of the Villager). The skin was created by a Minecraft user named Miclee.



Sky Dimension
The Sky Dimension or Skylands was a planned dimension, intended to be added in Beta 1.8 or Minecraft 1.0. It could be accessed using hacks or mods but portals to the Sky Dimension were never implemented. The idea was ultimately scrapped and its code was reused to make the End. the End has a purple sky, no clouds, and the floating island are made entirely of End Stone. When in the End, the debug info displays the word "Sky" as the current biome name.

Audio loops
Loops were unused sounds, found in the game files, and were possibly meant for when the player is in a specific type of location (i.e., in caves, woods, the ocean and beside a waterfall).

They were found in, and could be converted to reveal four loops, of birds chirping, cave chimes, ocean and waterfall noises.

Calm4.ogg


Calm4.ogg was a music file (alongside the other tracks) that was beta-tested and created by Notch himself.

It consists of an up-beat, battle-like tune. A part of the song has Notch saying "Mojang Specifications" in a slowed-down voice.

The track was released around, but it is unknown when and why it omitted from the downloaded game files. As such, players who had the game while the song was still in it will continue to hear it being played, as the game will play any song in the  folder.

Play Tutorial Level button
An unclickable Play Tutorial Level button was added during Indev. It could be found on the main screen. It was finally removed during the transition from Alpha to Beta stage, but no such tutorial level existed between Indev and Beta.

The tutorial level was finally added in the Xbox 360 version and PS3 version of Minecraft.

Dropped/In limbo
These features were planned at one point but later abandoned or their current status is unknown.

Branches
Notch mentioned adding branches in a blog post during Indev. The addition of sideways logs seems to be an alternative for branches.

Coral
Notch attempted to implement coral, "but it’s really hard to draw a single block that looks like corals, since it’s really more about crazy amounts of variation and diversity. But I do know that the corals will have tiny fish particles around them."

Furniture


In Indev's terrain.png were two textures which might be interpreted as a chair (side and front). The actual purpose of those textures is unknown. The 2nd texture might be the side view of a table. On Word of Notch, furniture, and more specifically chairs, is mentioned a few times.

Spike block
Spike Blocks were originally planned for, working by extending and retracting spikes (and making them more "spike pistons" than anything), but were replaced by Sticky Pistons. On May 28, 2012, Dinnerbone stated that he'd like to add spike blocks, but is unsure of how to implement them.

Purple arrow


Purple arrows were shot by Skeletons in Survival Test and acted the same as regular Arrows, but the texture is not currently in use.

Quiver
Although the sprite for a Quiver has been in the game since Indev, almost nothing is known about it (although, presumably, it would be used to hold arrows). Jeb has stated that he is not going to add Quivers. The quiver texture is from one of Notch's previous games, from which a few textures, such as swords, arrows, and armor were originally taken.

Quivers are obtainable in the Pocket Edition version of minecraft using hacks. However, these quivers do nothing but freeze the game when used as they are an "empty" item using the quiver texture.



Dirt slab
Notch did a test with dirt slabs, although they were never officially added.



Dyed planks
Dinnerbone asked Twitter how they would feel about colored planks. He announced the results as being, "30% 'please no', 80% 'yes please'. Yes, that's 110%. I don't even know." Despite this, he canceled the idea and instead added hardened clay, which can be dyed. The dyed planks were abandoned after Dinnerbone realized they would require slabs and stairs of each color too. However, each tree type has their own color plank. This includes stairs and slabs, but not buttons or fences. However, they are not dyed, just simply the color of the appropriate tree.

New rails
Mojang announced the idea of possible new rails at Minecon 2012. One of the ideas was a new rail to unload mobs and perhaps players when reached. These rails were supposed to be released in the Redstone Update but were not subsequently included.

Minecart with dispenser
Mojang tweeted images of this during the development of the Redstone Update but did not subsequently release it in the update.



Lectern
The Lectern was an old project of Dinnerbone's. It was meant to be a stand for books so you could easily read them. He was well on his way to creating it when he encountered problems and scrapped the idea, but mentioned that he might pick up work on the lectern in the near future.

BUD switch
BUD switch was a block that was possibly planned to be added in the Redstone Update, told at Minecon 2012 for use with redstone circuitry, but still was not added.

Whale
Whales were mobs mentioned by Notch in a version of Alpha as a water mob, until the addition of Squid.

Red Dragon
Notch revealed during the 8th Seecret Friday Update that he would add dragons, one being the Ender Dragon, the other being red tameable dragons. Jeb informed players on his AMA on Reddit that he would add red dragons, but was unsure exactly how. The Red Dragon has not subsequently been added.

On October 22, 2013, Dinnerbone tweeted that the Red Dragon is "shelved" and not in development.

Later, on December 15, 2013, dinnerbone wrote on reddit that there will be red dragons in Minecraft one day.

Panda
Dinnerbone once tweeted about pandas in response to the question "If you could code any mob into the game, what would it be?" They were never mentioned afterwards.

Capture the flag
Capture the flag has been mentioned a lot by Notch and is currently unimplemented, but it was also stated at Minecon that it will come on the Xbox before the PC or Pocket edition. Dinnerbone said on reddit he might add flags so Capture the Flag might be in a near update. Currently, plugins and mods have been created to simulate Capture the Flag.

Mentioned
These features were mentioned, but nothing was ever done with them.


 * Animated swinging doors
 * Scarecrows
 * Seasons
 * Pandas
 * In early Alpha, Notch mentioned two more gamemodes, Team Survival Mode and Fortress Mode
 * Colliding Clouds
 * More Sea Life
 * Exploding arrows
 * Cherry trees
 * Flags, for the unimplemented Capture the Flag gamemode (See above)

Joke features


Notch and other Mojang AB employees have frequently joked about adding various features to the game.


 * Hot dogs
 * Herobrine. In every new Minecraft update, in the changelog, it will say "removed Herobrine", but Herobrine was never implemented. This has also appeared in the changelog for Scrolls version 0.103.0.
 * The Locked Chest or "Steve Co Supply Crate" was temporarily added as an April fools joke.
 * When Hardcore mode was announced, a joke screenshot of "Ultra Hardcore Mode" was shown, where death would revoke an account's premium status.
 * Jeb joked about adding chips if 100% of the community agreed on what type the chips would be.
 * Marc joked about adding Top Hats for 1.4.
 * A snapshot named 12marc40awesome containing various joke features such as volcanoes, (more) dragons, coral, fish, and fish blocks.
 * Pine cones.
 * Dinnerbone joked about adding dwarves when asked about it.
 * A texture known in the game files as "skis.png", was added in the Christmas/New Year update. Its textures were added by Dinnerbone as a red herring.
 * SethBling mentioned a downside of the command blocks on one of his livestreams, and Dinnerbone joked about removing command blocks to accommodate him.
 * Many features for Minecraft 2.0 as an April Fools' Day joke, such as Pink Withers and Redstone Bugs.
 * Dinnerbone joked that Minecraft pizza would be good, and then KrisJelbring then states Pizza is confirmed for minecraft