Java Edition 1.16.2

1.16.2 is a minor update to released on August 11, 2020, which adds piglin brutes, experimental support for custom biomes, and fixes bugs.

Items

 * Spawn eggs
 * Added the spawn egg.

Mobs

 * s
 * A new stronger variant of piglins that wield golden axes.
 * Are always hostile towards players, even when wearing gold
 * Have health.
 * Only spawn during world generation in bastion remnants.

General

 * Tags
 * Added block tag.
 * Contains mycelium, podzol, crimson nylium, and warped nylium.
 * Used to determine which blocks mushrooms can be placed on and which blocks huge mushrooms can grow on, even if the light level is high.
 * Added the block tag.
 * Contains netherrack, basalt, and blackstone.
 * Used to determine what blocks ancient debris can replace when generated as a mineral vein in the Nether.
 * Added the block tag.
 * Contains stone, granite, diorite, and andesite.
 * Used to determine what blocks dirt, gravel, granite, diorite, andesite, coal ore, iron ore, gold ore, redstone ore, diamond ore, lapis lazuli ore, and infested stone can replace when generated as mineral veins in the Overworld.
 * Added the item tag.
 * Contains cobblestone and blackstone.
 * Used in the advancement and recipe files.
 * Used in the recipe file.

Command format

 * and
 * Added an parameter for setting the default facing angle of a respawning player.
 * Syntax:
 * : Floating point yaw angle in degrees. Supports the relative modifier, which defaults to the direction the executing player is facing.
 * : Floating point yaw angle in degrees. Supports the relative modifier, which defaults to the direction the executing player is facing.
 * : Floating point yaw angle in degrees. Supports the relative modifier, which defaults to the direction the executing player is facing.

Blocks

 * Brewing stands
 * Can now be crafted with blackstone.
 * Determined by the item tag.


 * Chains
 * Can now be placed in all orientations


 * Furnaces
 * The crafting recipe and recipe book unlock now use the item tag.
 * This change is not noticeable in-game as this tag has the same contents as the old item tag.


 * Lanterns
 * Can now be waterlogged.
 * Also applies to soul lanterns.


 * Nether vegetation
 * No longer catches fire.


 * Potted cactus
 * Model now uses a cullface for the top.
 * Now no longer has a hole in the bottom.

Items

 * Brown and red mushroom
 * Can now be placed and grown on both types of nylium.


 * Crimson and warped fungi
 * Can now be placed on mycelium.
 * Will still only grow into a huge fungus on the respective nylium.


 * Pufferfish
 * Now gives Nausea I instead of Nausea II when eaten.
 * This has no practical effect in-game as the level of the Nausea effect does not change anything.


 * Totem of undying
 * Now gives Fire Resistance for 40 seconds when activated.

Mobs

 * Endermen
 * Will no longer place their held blocks onto bedrock blocks.


 * Piglins
 * Become angry with players who open or destroy chest minecarts and hopper minecarts.


 * Pillagers, vexes and vindicators
 * The attack animations of unarmed pillagers, vexes and vindicators have been changed.


 * Villagers
 * Now emit green particles when joining a village, setting a home bed, or acquiring a job site or profession to match.
 * Now lose their job sites when changing dimension.
 * They don't get off the minecart when they change into zombie villagers and vice versa.


 * Zoglins
 * Can now be leashed. However, hoglins still break their leash when zombifying.


 * Suffocation
 * Mobs now suffocate when their head is inside soul sand, farmland, and grass paths.

World generation

 * Bastion remnants
 * Now spawn piglin brutes on world generation.
 * Normal piglins may still spawn.
 * Now have gilded blackstone under most chests.


 * Custom
 * Custom worlds now support custom biomes and custom noise settings.

Command format

 * now respects dimension scaling for relative coordinates: the execution position (only the X/Z part) of a command is divided by 8 when traveling from the Overworld to the Nether, and is multiplied by 8 when vice versa.
 * If a value is added after the tilde, that value is added only after the new scaled position is calculated. For instance,  will first scale the player's current position (multiplying by eight when traveling to the Overworld or dividing by eight when going to the Nether) before adding five to that outputted value.
 * For example, if a player at position in Overworld runs command, the player would now be teleported to  in the Nether.
 * Relatively, if a player at position in the Nether runs command, the player would now be teleported to  in Overworld.
 * If a player at position in the Overworld runs command, the player would now be teleported to  in the Nether.
 * If a player at position in Overworld runs command, the player would still be teleported to  in the Nether.
 * The behavior before this version can be done by running command.
 * Applies to custom dimensions as well.
 * Applies to custom dimensions as well.

Gameplay

 * Advancements
 * Piglin brutes can be killed for the "Monster Hunter" advancement and count toward the "Monsters Hunted" advancement.


 * Creative inventory
 * Tools are now sorted based on their material in the creative inventory.


 * Bartering
 * Various weights and item amounts have been changed.
 * Blackstone, spectral arrows, and water bottles can now be obtained through bartering.
 * Glowstone dust and magma cream can no longer be obtained from bartering.

General

 * Menu
 * Dropping resource packs into the menu now updates the list of resource packs without needing a reload.
 * Data packs can now have a  in the root folder, and will display it in the data pack menu.


 * Data packs
 * There is now experimental support for a  folder in data packs.
 * can contain biome definitions.
 * can contain definitions for world carver settings.
 * can contain definitions for feature placements.
 * can contain definitions for structure placements.
 * can contain definitions for surfaces.
 * can contain noise configurations.
 * can contain sets of block processors.
 * can contain pool definitions for jigsaw structures.
 * Custom biomes can now be used in the single biome/caves/floating islands world types after adding the data pack containing the biome first.
 * Custom biomes can now be used in custom dimension generators.


 * Distance effects
 * Mineral veins now no longer use 32-bit floats, causing them to generate in the correct shape regardless of position in the world and preventing a crash that could occur if the world border was moved out further via mods.


 * GPU warnlist
 * The GPU warnlist has been changed to no longer explicitly warn against Mesa and Gallium renderers and X.Org vendors, but instead just warn against anything with a version below 3.0.


 * Servers
 * Dedicated servers can now rate limit clients.
 * Dedicated servers can now kick clients that consistently send too many packets within a second.
 * Controlled with the  settings in.
 * The default rate limit of 0 means "no limit".


 * Tags
 * Removed the item tag.


 * World creation
 * Changed the description of the gamerule from "Advance in-game time" to "Advance time of day".

Videos
Videos made by slicedlime:

Trivia

 * 1.16.2 is the only update other than 1.0.0 that has 2 release candidates.
 * It is also the first minor update to have release candidates.
 * 1.16.2 is tied with 1.7.4 as the minor update with the most development versions.