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.

Lanterns
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.

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.

Gears
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.

Pigmen
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), but it is possible that they may be added in the future. The skin was created by a Minecraft user named Miclee.

Rubies


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 and redstone.

The 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 but portals to the Sky Dimension were never implemented, the idea was ultimately scrapped and its code was reused to make the End. When in the End, the debug info displays the word "Sky" as the current biome name.

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. The unused potions are:


 * Water Breathing
 * Nausea (Shows the Nether teleport animation without the color change -- seemingly difficult to directly hit mobs)
 * Mining Fatigue (slows down mining speed)
 * Blindness (surroundings turn black & only a few blocks ahead are visible.Using this potion along with Night Vision will turn everything black)

These potion effects can be obtained through the custom potion feature along with with the /effect command newly added in 1.5.

A more detailed list can be found at Potions.

Note: If you try to open inventory while in a Nether Portal, it will not open. Probably because there's Nausea potion on action. And, if you make the command /effect with the Nausea ID and power 100, if then you drink milk you'll see for a second the Nether Portal animation.

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 of Minecraft.

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. 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.

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

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."

Breathing Effects
Breathing and burping sounds can be found in the resources/newsound/random a file called "breath.ogg" and "burp.ogg". Click to hear breathing.

Chairs and other 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. On Word of Notch, furniture, and more specifically chairs, is mentioned a few times.

Spike Blocks
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.

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

Branch block and downing the whole tree by cutting the bottom block
Notch mentioned both of these in a blog post during Indev. The addition of sideways logs seems to be an alternative for branches.

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.

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

Quivers
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, where a few textures, such as swords, arrows, and armor were originally taken from.

Dirt slabs
Before stone slabs were officially added to the game, 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 is now available in the snapshots. Including dyed!

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


 * Animated swinging doors
 * Scarecrows
 * Day and Night Cycles, and Seasons
 * Pandas
 * In early Alpha, Notch mentioned two more gamemodes, Team Survival Mode and Fortress Mode

Joke features


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


 * Hot dogs.
 * Herobrine.
 * 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.