Java Edition unused features

Since the beginning of Minecraft's development, there have been a number of features added to the game that have no actual use in Survival or in Creative. Some of these features are leftover from removed features, or simply placeholders for new features.

Note that this page only documents unused features that are currently in the game. See Java Edition removed features for features previously in the game that are no longer available.

Giant


Giants are an unused mob added in Indev. They appear to be a giant zombie. Giants have no movement AI, therefore they are unable to walk around. They cannot spawn naturally because the game requires the light level to be both greater than 11 and less than 8 and those conditions cannot be met in vanilla. This makes them impossible to appear through spawners.

Giants can only be summoned using the command.

The Killer Bunny


The killer bunny is a variant of the rabbit that is hostile to all players and tamed wolves. Its fur is pure white with blood-red eyes that are horizontal, compared to a normal rabbit's vertical eyes.

On peaceful difficulty, the killer bunny will not despawn, despite it being a hostile mob. It will still attack wolves and tamed wolves. When it was originally added in snapshots of Java Edition 1.8, it spawned as a rare type of rabbit, but it was removed before the final release.

The killer bunny can only be spawned with the command.

Zombie Horse


Zombie horses are a variant of horses that were added in Java Edition 1.6.1, along with normal and skeleton horses. There is a zombie horse spawn egg available only in creative, but they remain unused in survival.

In addition to spawn eggs, zombie horses can be spawned with the command.

Illusioner


The illusioner is an unused illager that was added in Java Edition 1.12. Like other illagers, they will attack players, villagers and iron golems within a 12 blocks range. It will attack with its spells, and with its bow.

The illusioner has two spells: a spell that blinds its opponent, and a spell that summons duplicates and makes the illusioner invisible.

The illusioner has a face that is just like the face of a vindicator.

Illusioners can only be spawned with the command.

Potions
The uncraftable potion is a potion added in the Java Edition 1.9 snapshot 15w44b with no effect that is unobtainable in survival without cheats. It is also available in splash potion and lingering potion forms, as well as for tipped arrows. It serves as a placeholder for potions that have missing or invalid potion-effect tags, which they automatically default to.

It can be obtained using the following command:.

There are also potions that cannot be brewed, and give the player status effects not intended to be received by potions; e.g. Wither, Nausea. Again, these can only be obtained through custom potions.

Status effects
Various status effects remain unused in the game. They can be obtained using or potion NBT data, but have no way of being obtained other than that.

Bad Luck
Bad Luck reduces chances of high-quality loot.

Blindness
Blindness is a status effect which creates thick black fog around the player and prevents them from sprinting. As of snapshot 17w16a for Java Edition 1.12, this effect can be obtained from an illusioner, though those mobs are also unused. In Java Edition 1.14, this effect is no longer unused and can be obtained from eating suspicious stew.

Health Boost
During the Java Edition 1.6.1 snapshots, the health boost status effect was added. It boosted the player's hearts for a temporary time. It could be obtained from eating a golden apple.

In the next main snapshot, golden apples give the player absorption instead of health boost, but the effect was still left in the game.

In Java Edition 1.9, the developers gave the Health Boost effect a new texture from its original golden heart texture, despite the fact that it is still not in use.

Saturation
Saturation is a status effect added in the Java Edition 1.6.1 pre-release. It causes the hunger bar to refill by each tick. In Java Edition 1.14, this effect is no longer unused and can be obtained from eating suspicious stew.

Biomes
The following biomes remain unused since 13w36a and 18w08b. While they do not naturally generate in default worlds, they can be accessed using the Buffet world type.

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, forests, 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.

Others
However, the "Breath" sound is still usable by running in chat and command blocks.

Resources
Various resources located in the game's assets files that remain unused.

Angry villager head


In the particles sheet, there is an angry villager head which remains unused.

Purple arrow


Purple arrows were shot by skeletons in Survival Test and acted the same as regular arrows, and used a texture on the same sheet as the normal arrows, but the texture is not currently in use.

In Java Edition 1.9, a new texture was added for arrows, causing the original arrow texture, including the purple arrows to be entirely unused.

Ruby


On May 21, 2012, Jeb released a screenshot of himself testing the trading system. At this time, what would become emerald ore in Java Edition 1.3.1 was ruby ore. The previous ruby texture remains in the ruby.png file. 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 colorblind and he had a hard time spotting the difference between ruby ore and redstone ore. The names "Ruby Ore" and "Ruby" were still in the .lang files, but they were removed.

Villager speech bubble


The villager speech bubble is an image that was added along with the villager.png file in the jar when the trading system was added. It showed a trade, where raw chicken could be sold to villagers for another raw chicken. Both raw chickens have the old texture. During an interview about villagers, Jeb offered a possible explanation: "We did some experiments with thoughts bubbles, but it didn't look good. So in the end, after I’d been lead on Minecraft for a year, we just decided to add an interface instead."

Since 1.9, the texture has been partially overwritten by the selection arrows.

debug.png


These textures were added in Java Edition 1.9 snapshot 15w31a. They are used by the developers, maybe for making block models.

Despite being unused, both of these blocks were given new textures for the 2018 April Fools' update: .