Java Edition 1.16

1.16 is an upcoming major update to Java Edition that overhauls the Nether, set to release in 2020. This update was announced at MINECON Live 2019. The update does not include the Mountains biome features announced during MINECON Live 2019.

Blocks

 * Ancient debris


 * Can be found throughout the Nether at any altitude, though it is much more common at lower levels.
 * Can be refined into a netherite scrap by smelting in a furnace or blast furnace.
 * Same blast resistance as obsidian, but is movable with pistons.
 * Inventory item floats on lava.
 * Cannot burn in lava or fire.
 * A diamond or netherite pickaxe is required to mine it.
 * Always spawns covered by lava and/or blocks on all sides.


 * Basalt


 * Makes up basalt pillars.
 * Generates in soul sand valleys and basalt deltas.
 * Can be placed directionally, similarly to logs.
 * Has a polished variant, obtained through the stonecutter or crafted from in a 2x2 grid, similar to other polished blocks.
 * Generates whenever lava touches blue ice while flowing over soul soil.


 * Blackstone


 * Generates in basalt deltas.
 * Has a regular, polished, chiseled polished, polished brick and cracked polished brick variant.
 * Has regular, polished and polished brick slab, stair, and wall variants.
 * Has polished button and pressure plate variants.
 * Work like their stone counterparts.
 * Also has a variant called gilded blackstone, only found in bastions, which has a chance to drop golden nuggets when mined with a pickaxe.
 * In order for nuggets to be dropped, the Fortune enchantment is needed.
 * Using a normal or Silk Touch pickaxe will drop the ore block.
 * Can be used as an alternative in place of cobblestone for crafting furnaces and stone tools.


 * Block of netherite


 * Can be crafted with 9 netherite ingots.
 * Can be used as a beacon base.
 * Inventory item floats on lava.
 * Cannot burn in lava or fire.
 * Same blast resistance as obsidian, but is movable with pistons.


 * Chain


 * Generates in bastion remnants.
 * Crafted using 2 iron nuggets and 1 iron ingot in a vertical line formation.


 * Chiseled nether bricks


 * New variant of nether bricks.
 * Crafted from 2 nether brick slabs.


 * Cracked nether bricks


 * New variant of nether bricks.
 * Obtained by smelting nether bricks in a furnace.


 * Crimson and warped fungi


 * Generate in crimson and warped forests.
 * Can be placed on dirt, coarse dirt, farmland, podzol, nylium, soul soil, and grass blocks, and can also be placed in flower pots.
 * Bone meal can be used on fungi to grow it into the respective huge fungi when placed on the same type of nylium.
 * Unlike mushrooms, fungi do not spread over time.
 * Can be used in composters.


 * Crimson and warped nylium


 * Resemble grass blocks.
 * Can be spread to netherrack by using bonemeal on a netherrack block next to a nylium block.
 * Can be right-clicked with bone meal to generate roots, Nether sprouts, and fungi.


 * Crimson and warped planks


 * Wooden planks that do not burn.
 * Crafted from the respective stem.
 * Can be used to craft respective slabs, stairs, fences, fence gates, pressure plates, signs, buttons, doors and trapdoors.
 * Cannot be used as furnace fuel, since they do not burn.


 * Crimson and warped roots


 * Foliage that generates in both crimson and warped forest biomes, as well as soul sand valleys.
 * Can be placed into flower pots.
 * Can be used in composters.


 * Crimson and warped stems


 * Blocks that comprise the trunks of huge fungi.
 * Have animated textures.
 * Have a top texture similar to regular log blocks.
 * Can be placed directionally, similarly to logs.
 * Do not burn.
 * Have respective stripped variants.


 * Crying obsidian


 * Used to craft respawn anchors.
 * Can be found in ruined portals and bastion remnant loot chests.
 * Can be obtained by bartering with piglins.
 * Has a light level of 10.
 * Emits purple particles, resembling tears.
 * Has the same blast resistance as obsidian.
 * Programmer Art texture is the old texture from 2011.


 * Hyphae


 * A variant of stems with the bark on all 6 sides.
 * Also has a stripped variant.


 * Lodestone


 * Crafted with a netherite ingot and chiseled stone bricks.
 * a compass on one creates a lodestone compass, which points to that lodestone block.
 * Its functionality applies in all dimensions.


 * Nether gold ore


 * A variant of gold ore found in the Nether.
 * Drops 2–6 gold nuggets when mined.
 * This is affected by Fortune the same way other ores are, for a maximum possible drop of 24 golden nuggets with Fortune III.
 * Nether gold ore, obtained with Silk Touch, can still be smelted into a single gold ingot.
 * Can be mined with any pickaxe.
 * Also drops experience orbs.


 * Nether sprouts


 * Foliage that generates in warped forests.
 * Resembles grass from the Overworld.
 * Can be used in composters.


 * Quartz bricks
 * Crafted from four blocks of quartz.
 * Used as a decorative block.


 * Respawn anchor


 * Crafted with 6 crying obsidian and 3 glowstone.
 * Can be used to set spawn points in the Nether, using glowstone as charges.
 * A maximum of 4 charges can be set at once, and one charge is depleted with each respawn.
 * Redstone Comparators can track how much it is charged.
 * Emits a slight amount of light, which gets stronger for each charge added.
 * Using it in The End or the Overworld causes it to explode and set fire to surrounding blocks similar to beds in the nether/end.
 * Can be charged using a dispenser.
 * The portal animation on the top texture is inverted from the nether portal texture.


 * Shroomlight


 * Emits a light level of 15, similarly to glowstone.
 * Can be mined with any tool, but hoes are the most effective.
 * Generate as a part of huge fungi.


 * Soul campfire


 * Soul variant of the normal campfire.
 * Has a blue flame instead of orange.
 * Gives off a light level of 10, with the normal campfire giving off 15.
 * Hay bales can increase smoke particle height.
 * Does the same amount of damage as a regular campfire.
 * Crafted with soul sand or soul soil instead of coal.
 * Piglins are repelled by soul campfires.


 * Soul fire


 * Blue variant of fire.
 * Fire lit on soul soil or soul sand turns into soul fire regardless of dimension.
 * Burns forever, similarly to netherrack and magma blocks.
 * Generates naturally in the soul sand valley biome in the Nether.
 * Deals damage at a rate of per second as opposed to the  per second of regular fire.
 * Does not extinguish when in the rain.


 * Soul fire lantern


 * Gives off a light level of 10.
 * Crafted similarly to a normal lantern, using a soul fire torch instead of a normal torch.
 * Has an animated texture, just like its overworld counterpart.


 * Soul fire torch


 * Gives off a light level of 10.
 * Crafted similarly to a normal torch, with soul soil or soul sand being placed under the stick.
 * Gives off a lower light level than a normal torch.


 * Soul soil


 * Generates in the soul sand valley, alongside conventional soul sand.
 * Fire lit on soul soil is blue, and is called soul fire.
 * The player does not sink and is not slowed when walking in soul soil.
 * Considered a full block, unlike soul sand.
 * Can be used to summon the wither.


 * Target


 * Redstone component that can be activated by shooting projectiles into it.
 * Signal is stronger depending on how close the projectile is to the center of the block. The signal strength goes up to 15.
 * Can be crafted using a hay bale and 4 redstone dust.
 * Can be mined with any tool, but hoes are the most effective.
 * Does not need a redstone comparator to send a signal strength.


 * Twisting vines


 * Generates in the warped forest.
 * Is placed on top of a block and grows upward, like kelp.
 * Can be climbed, like normal vines.
 * Growth can be accelerated with bone meal.
 * Can be used in composters.


 * Warped wart block


 * A variation of the nether wart block, but cannot be crafted.
 * Generates as a part of huge warped fungi. Sometimes generates in the ground replacing the warped nylium in the warped forest biome.
 * Can be used in composters.


 * Weeping vines


 * Generates in the crimson forest.
 * Is placed on the bottom of a block and grows downward.
 * Can be climbed, like other vines.
 * Growth can be accelerated with bone meal.
 * Can be used in composters.



Items

 * Lodestone Compass


 * Created by right-clicking a lodestone with a compass.
 * Will point towards that lodestone.
 * Right-clicking with stacked compasses will turn all compasses into lodestone compasses.
 * Will keep them stacked.
 * Entering another dimension other than the one containing the right-clicked lodestone will cause the compass to shake uncontrollably.


 * Music discs


 * Added the "Pigstep" music disc, composed by Lena Raine.
 * Can only be found in bastion remnants.
 * Has a red disc color instead of black.
 * When played in a jukebox, a redstone comparator output will produce a signal strength of 13.


 * Netherite armor


 * Upgraded using a smithing table with a netherite ingot and the respective diamond item.
 * Does not burn in lava, as a dropped item or when worn (players equipping netherite armor, however, can still take burning damage).
 * Floats in lava.
 * Tougher than diamond armor.
 * Has higher durability and enchantability than diamond, but not higher than gold.


 * Netherite axe, hoe, pickaxe, shovel, and sword


 * Upgraded using a smithing table with a netherite ingot and the respective diamond item.
 * Do not burn in lava.
 * Float in lava.
 * Have higher item durability, mining level, breaking multiplier, and enchantability than diamond, but not higher than gold.
 * All items, except the hoe, deal 1 more damage than their diamond counterparts.


 * Netherite ingot


 * Created with 4 gold ingots and 4 netherite scraps.
 * Can be used to upgrade diamond tools and armor in a smithing table.
 * Floats in lava.
 * Cannot burn in lava.


 * Netherite scrap


 * Created by smelting ancient debris in a furnace or blast furnace.
 * Used to create netherite ingots.
 * Floats in lava.
 * Cannot burn in lava.


 * Piglin Banner Pattern
 * New pattern for banners, the Piglin.
 * Used in the loom to apply the Piglin pattern to the banner.
 * Can be found in bastions.


 * Spawn eggs


 * Added hoglin, piglin, strider, and zoglin spawn eggs.


 * Warped fungus on a stick


 * Crafted with a fishing rod and warped fungus.
 * Can be used to control striders in the same way a carrot on a stick controls pigs.
 * Right-clicking while riding a strider will temporarily boost its speed, similarly to riding pigs, taking 1 damage whenever the strider's speed is boosted.
 * Has 100 durability as opposed to the carrot on a stick’s durability of 25.
 * Mending and Unbreaking can be applied in an anvil.

Mobs

 * Hoglin


 * Have Health
 * Spawn in crimson forests.
 * Are a hostile mob.
 * Drop raw porkchop and occasionally leather.
 * Have an adult and baby variant.
 * Can be bred with crimson fungi.
 * Are hunted by adult piglins.
 * Baby piglins are not hunted and do not hunt hoglins.
 * Avoid placed warped fungi, nether portals and respawn anchors.
 * Will convert into zoglins when in the Overworld.


 * Piglin


 * Have Health
 * Spawn in crimson forests and nether wastes biomes.
 * Randomly spawns with golden sword or crossbow.
 * Adults are hostile; babies are passive.
 * Will not attack players wearing at least one piece of golden armor.
 * Adult piglins turn aggressive when a player is mining blocks of gold or opening/breaking chests, even if they are wearing gold armor.
 * The player can barter with them by right-clicking with gold ingots or dropping them on the ground, which makes them drop at least one item or block in return.
 * Attack adult hoglins.
 * Baby piglins do not attack and adult piglins will not attack baby hoglins.
 * Up to 3 baby piglins can ride on the back of baby hoglins.
 * Adults attack wither skeletons on sight.
 * Avoid soul fire, soul torches, soul lanterns, soul campfires, zombified piglins, and zoglins.
 * Can spawn with golden armor.
 * Will convert to a zombified piglin when in the Overworld.
 * Have an  data value that prevents them from zombifying in the Overworld.


 * Strider


 * Have Health
 * A passive mob that spawns in the Nether on lava oceans.
 * Drops 2–5 string.
 * Can be saddled and controlled with a warped fungus on a stick.
 * Moves in and out of lava.
 * Shivers and turns blueish-purple when out of lava.
 * Moves significantly slower out of lava.
 * Is damaged by water and rain.
 * Has a baby variant.
 * Can be bred using warped fungi.
 * Adults can spawn with baby striders riding them.
 * Can spawn with zombified piglins riding them.
 * If they spawn with a zombified piglin, they will also have a saddle equipped.


 * Zoglin


 * Have health
 * A zombified variant of the hoglin.
 * Created when a hoglin is brought into the Overworld.
 * Unlike hoglins, they cannot be bred or fed, and they do not flee from warped fungi.
 * Attack most mobs on sight, except for creepers and other zoglins.
 * Drops rotten flesh.
 * Takes more damage with Smite, as it is considered an undead mob.

World generation

 * Biomes


 * Basalt Deltas
 * A volcanic biome in the Nether. Filled with pillars of basalt and large areas of blackstone. The air is filled with a light gray ash-like particle.
 * Ghasts, magma cubes, and striders spawn in this biome.


 * Crimson forest
 * A dense forest with huge crimson fungi. Nether wart blocks and fungi are found in patches on the ground and weeping vines are found under the trees and nether wart “stalactites”. Fog effects are very similar to the Nether wastes biome.
 * Zombified piglins, piglins, and hoglins may spawn here.


 * Soul sand valley
 * A vast grotto composed of uncovered nether fossils, soul sand, soul soil, large pillars made of basalt, blue fog, and soul fire.
 * Skeletons, ghasts, and endermen may spawn here.


 * Warped forest
 * A blue color variation of the crimson forest, but with somewhat different vegetation and blue particles and purple fog effects.
 * Endermen and striders may spawn here.


 * Structures


 * Basalt pillar
 * Floor to ceiling pillars of basalt that generate in soul sand valleys.


 * Bastion remnants
 * Generate in all Nether biomes, except basalt deltas.
 * Four types of structures generate Bridge, Hoglin Stable, Housing Units, and Treasure Room.
 * Are the only source of the "Pigstep" music disc.
 * Piglins and hoglins spawn here.
 * Spawners that spawn magma cubes can be found in bastion remnants.


 * Huge crimson fungi and huge warped fungi
 * New structures resembling trees found in crimson and warped forests, respectively. They resemble trees in the Overworld.
 * Made of crimson and warped stem blocks as well as nether wart blocks and warped wart blocks. Resembles leaves in Overworld.
 * Can be grown from their respective fungi.


 * Nether fossils
 * New fossil structures have been added for the soul sand valley.
 * These fossils are different from the overworld fossils and generate random pieces of basalt instead of coal ore.


 * Ruined portals
 * Shattered remains of nether portals.
 * Generate in both the Nether and the Overworld.
 * Can be buried underground or underwater.
 * A loot chest can be found beside the portal.

Command format

 * Used to locate specific biomes.
 * Used to locate specific biomes.


 * Used to change or read attributes
 * Used to change or read attributes

Gameplay

 * Advancements


 * Added new "Bullseye" advancement.
 * To complete this advancement, the player has to shoot a projectile into the center of one face of a target block.


 * Bartering
 * Added new bartering mechanic, through which the player can trade items with piglins.
 * Bartering is done by right-clicking piglins with gold ingots or dropping them on the ground, which makes the piglin drop at least one item or block in return, with different blocks and items having varying rarities.


 * Enchanting


 * Added the Soul Speed enchantment.
 * A new treasure enchantment only obtainable via bartering with piglins or in chest loot found in Bastion Remnant.
 * Only available on boots.
 * Allows faster walking on soul sand and soul soil.
 * There is a 4% chance that the durability of the boots goes down for each soul sand or soul soil block stepped on.
 * Cannot be obtained from enchanting tables, fishing, or trading.


 * Sounds


 * New unique block sounds for most of the newly added blocks have been added.
 * Some blocks already in the game such as netherrack, bone blocks and nether bricks sounds have been changed.

General

 * Accessibility
 * Chat line spacing can now be adjusted.
 * A chat delay can be set between 0 (default) and 6 seconds.
 * Added an Entity Distance scale option ranging from 50% to 500%.


 * Ambience


 * Added new ambient sounds to the Nether.
 * Different sounds play in each Nether biome.
 * Added 3 new soundtracks to the Nether, composed by Lena Raine: "Rubedo", "Chrysopoeia" and "So Below".
 * "Rubedo" plays in the nether wastes biome.
 * "Chrysopoeia" plays in the crimson forest biome.
 * "So Below" plays in the soul sand valley and basalt deltas biomes.


 * Particles


 * Added particles.
 * Added three particles for crying obsidian:.
 * Added a new particle type:.
 * Used when walking on soul sand or soul soil when wearing boots with the new Soul Speed enchantment.


 * Pre-game menus
 * Difficulty and game rules can now be changed from the "Create World" screen.


 * Tags


 * Added block tag.
 * Contains block of iron, block of gold, block of diamond, block of emerald, and block of netherite.
 * Controls what blocks can be used to build a beacon base.


 * Added item tag.
 * Contains iron ingot, gold ingot, diamond, emerald and netherite ingot.
 * Controls what items can be used as payment in a beacon's GUI.


 * Added block tag.
 * Contains campfires and soul campfires.
 * Bees, parrots, and turtles will view blocks in this tag as dealing fire damage and pathfind accordingly.
 * Campfires use this tag to determine if they are lit or not.
 * Flint and steel & fire charges use this tag to determine if they can light campfires.


 * Added block tag.
 * Includes ladders, vines, scaffolding, weeping vines and twisting vines.
 * Used in mob pathfinding and to determine what blocks the player can climb.


 * Added item tag.
 * Contains all music discs except "Pigstep".
 * Used to determine what music discs creepers can drop.


 * Added block and item tags.
 * Contains crimson stem, stripped crimson stem, crimson hyphae and stripped crimson hyphae.


 * Added block tag.
 * Contains fire and soul fire.
 * Used in defining various fire-related behaviors, such as mob pathfinding and splash water extinguishing.


 * Added item tag.
 * Contains cobblestone and blackstone.
 * Items in this tag can be used to craft furnaces and will unlock the recipe in the recipe book.


 * Added block and item tag.
 * Contains gold ore and nether gold ore.
 * Many recipes use this tag.


 * Added block tag.
 * Contains container blocks (chests, trapped chests, ender chests, barrels, the  block tag) and gold blocks (blocks of gold, gilded blackstone, and the   block tag).
 * Piglins will become hostile towards a player that destroys a block in this tag.


 * Added block tag.
 * Contains warped fungus, nether portals and respawn anchors.
 * Hoglins will avoid blocks in this tag.


 * Added entity tag.
 * Includes the arrows tag, snowballs, fireballs, small fireballs, eggs, tridents, dragon fireballs, and wither skulls.
 * Used to determine what entities will break chorus fruit when hit.


 * Added block and item tag.
 * Contains the block and item tags, respectively.


 * Added block and item tag.
 * Contains crimson and warped stems, hyphae, planks, and other woodblocks, as well as stripped variants where applicable.
 * Items in the item tag cannot be used as fuel in a furnace.


 * Added block tag.
 * Contains crimson nylium and warped nylium.


 * Added block and item tag.
 * Contains soul fire, soul fire torches, soul fire lanterns and soul campfires.
 * Piglins will avoid, and will not attempt to pick up, blocks and items in this tag.


 * Added block tag
 * Contains light and heavy weighted pressure plates, as well as the wooden pressure plates and stone pressure plates block tags.


 * Added block and item tag.
 * Contains soul sand and soul soil.
 * Determines what blocks can support soul fire.
 * Items in this tag can be used to craft soul fire torches and soul campfires and will unlock the recipes in the recipe book.


 * Added block tag.
 * Contains soul sand and soul soil.
 * The Soul Speed enchantment uses this tag to test for which blocks will increase speed.


 * Added block tag
 * Contains stone and polished blackstone pressure plates.


 * Added item tag.
 * Contains cobblestone and blackstone.
 * Items in this tag can be used to craft stone tools and will unlock the recipes in the recipe book.


 * Added block tag.
 * Contains lava.
 * Unless a strider is in a block in this tag, it will turn purple and shiver.


 * Added block tag.
 * Contains torches, soul fire torches, redstone torches,  and tripwire.
 * Controls what non-solid blocks can transform walls into their pillared block state.


 * Added block and item tags.
 * Contains warped stem, stripped warped stem, warped hyphae and stripped warped hyphae.


 * Added block tag.
 * Contains nether wart block and warped wart block.


 * Added block tag.
 * Contains soul sand and soul soil.
 * Controls what blocks can be used to build a wither.


 * Text


 * Added text which was missing for a death message and was displaying a raw translation string.

Blocks

 * Bamboo saplings


 * Renamed to "Bamboo Shoot".


 * Beacons


 * Netherite blocks can be used as the base of a beacon.
 * Netherite ingots can be used as fuel for a beacon.


 * Bells


 * Now rings when hit by any type of projectile.


 * Bone blocks


 * Generate as part of nether fossils in soul sand valleys.
 * Now have their own sound, instead of using the default stone sound.


 * Campfires


 * Now ignites when hit by any burning projectile.
 * Can now be crafted using crimson and warped stems.


 * Composter


 * Now allows for fungi, nether sprouts, roots, nether wart, nether wart blocks, warped wart blocks, twisting vines, and weeping vines to be composted.


 * Dispensers


 * Can now saddle pigs, striders, and tamed horses, donkeys and mules.
 * Can now put horse armor on tamed horses.
 * Can now put carpets on tamed llamas.
 * Can now put chests on tamed llamas, donkeys, and mules.
 * Can now shear mooshrooms and snow golems.


 * Fire


 * Now has a proper hitbox ($1/16$ blocks).
 * Cannot be put out by swords or tridents in Creative mode, akin to other blocks, and can be modified via the debug stick.
 * Now has loot tables.


 * Flower pots


 * Has a bottom texture when empty.


 * Furnaces


 * Can now be crafted with blackstone.


 * Gravel and soul sand


 * Generate in the new soul sand valley biome.


 * Jigsaw block


 * Can have one of 12 orientations.
 * Added new property to describe if attached piece can be rotated  or not.
 * NBT field has been renamed to.
 * has been split into (on parent block) and  (on child block).
 * Added a button in the GUI that generates a jigsaw structure starting from the jigsaw block, using a given generation depth.


 * Lava


 * Now pushes entities.
 * Now has a proper hitbox, making flowing lava blocks not full blocks anymore.


 * Mobs


 * Now will avoid walking on magma blocks and lit campfires.


 * Netherrack


 * Using bone meal on netherrack adjacent to nylium converts it into nylium.
 * If two nylium blocks of different types are present, it chooses the type at random based on how many blocks of each type are around it.


 * Nether wart blocks


 * Generate as a part of huge crimson fungi. Sometimes generates in the ground replacing the crimson nylium in the crimson forest biome.
 * Texture changed from Nether Wart Block JE2.png to Nether Wart Block JE3 BE2.png.
 * Changed the texture to match the texture $$.
 * Can now be used in composters.


 * Nether Vegetation


 * Sprouts, fungi, roots, vines, wart, and wart blocks are now compostable.


 * Observers and redstone blocks


 * Now allow the placing of ladders and tripwire hooks.


 * Pistons and sticky pistons


 * Hardness has been increased to 1.5.
 * Pickaxes are now more effective on pistons.
 * Pistons can now support non-solid blocks on its top face without them popping off when the piston retracts. (Torches, levers, buttons, etc.)


 * Purpur pillar


 * Changed the top texture to match the texture $$.


 * Redstone dust


 * Now has a bottom texture.


 * Smithing tables


 * Added functionality: it is used to upgrade diamond items into their respective Netherite variations.
 * Enchantments on the diamond item are preserved when upgrading into Netherite.


 * Smoker


 * Can now be crafted using crimson or warped planks.


 * Smooth quartz


 * Renamed to "smooth quartz block".


 * Snow


 * Doors, rails, buttons, torches, pressure plates and redstone can now be placed on a full-block of snow layers.


 * Soul sand


 * Soul sand with a rail on top no longer slows down minecarts.
 * Doors, rails, buttons, torches, pressure plates, and redstone dust can now be placed on it.
 * Walking/running speed on soul sand now can be sped up if wearing Soul Speed boots.


 * Structure block
 * Expanded the maximum size per axis from 32 to 48, to accomadate the new Piglin Bastion Remnants.


 * TNT


 * Now ignites when hit by any burning projectile.


 * Vines


 * Now play a sound when climbed.


 * Walls


 * Walls in the middle of a row have longer pillars when stacked vertically.
 * Block state now uses for  directional values.
 * Will now connect to the bottom and sides of glass panes and iron bars.
 * Will now connect to the bottom of sea pickles.
 * Walls now create posts under more blocks, like pressure plates and banners.

Items

 * Bone meal


 * Can now be used to grow kelp, weeping vines, and twisting vines.
 * Fungi, roots, and nether sprouts now grow on nylium if bone meal is used on a nylium block.


 * Charcoal


 * Can now only be smelted from items in the block tag.
 * This change does not affect gameplay, as the new tag only contains items charcoal could be smelted from.


 * Clay


 * Renamed to "clay ball".


 * Compass
 * Can now be enchanted with Curse of Vanishing
 * Can now be used on the new Lodestone Block as a waypoint.
 * The compass now has,  , and   data fields. If   is zero, the game will skip checking for a lodestone in the specified position.


 * Diamond axe, diamond boots, diamond helmet, diamond hoe, diamond leggings, diamond pickaxe, diamond shovel, diamond sword, golden hoe, golden pickaxe, wooden hoe, and wooden pickaxe


 * Changed their textures slightly.


 * Hoes


 * Can now be enchanted with Efficiency, Fortune and Silk Touch.
 * Now mine sponges, wet sponges, dried kelp blocks, nether wart blocks, targets, shroomlights, leaves, and hay bales faster than other tools.
 * Mining with a hoe does not cause leaves to drop like mining with shears does.
 * As hoes can now be enchanted with Fortune or Silk Touch, these enchantments will now affect leaves when mined with a hoe.


 * Each tier has different speed at which hoes mine blocks they are effective against.


 * Spawn eggs


 * Using a spawn egg on a mob that does not have a baby variant now spawns an adult of that mob type.


 * Stone axes, hoes, pickaxes, shovels, and swords


 * Can now be crafted with Blackstone.


 * Zombie pigman spawn eggs


 * Renamed to zombified piglin spawn egg.

Mobs

 * Bees


 * The maximum distance a bee can wander away from its home hive when randomly wandering has been reduced to around 22 blocks.


 * Endermen


 * Now spawn in soul sand valleys and warped forests.
 * Can now pick up nylium, roots, and fungi variants.
 * Will no longer pick up netherrack.


 * Fish


 * Now despawn when they are further than 64 blocks away from the closest player.
 * Does not apply to fish placed or named by the player.


 * Ghasts


 * Sounds are now heard at a shorter range.
 * Now spawn in soul sand valleys and basalt deltas.


 * Magma Cubes


 * Now spawn commonly in basalt deltas.


 * Parrots


 * Parrots imitate hostile mobs less often.
 * Parrots do not randomly imitate hostile mobs when the gamemode is set to peaceful difficulty.


 * Skeletons


 * Now spawn in soul sand valleys.


 * Skeleton horses and zombie horses


 * Can now be leashed with a lead.


 * Villagers


 * Farmer villagers now put excess seeds in their composter.
 * Will use the bone meal received from the composter to grow crops.
 * Farmers can now share excess wheat to other farmers, allowing them to make bread.


 * Wither


 * Can be summoned using soul soil as the base.


 * Wither Skeletons


 * Now attack piglins on sight.


 * Zombie pigmen


 * Now spawn in crimson forests.
 * Renamed to "Zombified Piglins", and given a new model and texture.

Non-mob entities

 * Item frames


 * Have two new data tags:
 * – makes item frame invisible (item inside frame remains visible).
 * – prevents item frame from breaking and the item inside from being removed (it does not prevent item rotation).


 * Minecarts


 * Now check dismount position height against entity height.

World generation

 * Ceiling


 * Alongside mushrooms, huge crimson and warped fungi can generate over y=128 in the Nether.


 * Nether biome


 * The old "Nether" biome has been renamed to "Nether Wastes".


 * Structures


 * Shipwrecks and ocean ruins are now less common.

Command format

 * The message shown when running an unknown/incomplete command has changed.




 * Can now be used to locate Nether fossils and Bastion Remnants.




 * Now supports being run in any dimension.

Gameplay

 * Advancements


 * The "Sweet Dreams" advancement's description has changed from "Change your respawn point" to "Sleep in a bed to change your respawn point."
 * Elder guardians, ender dragons, endermites, hoglins, piglins, vexes, withers, and zoglins can now be killed for the "Monster Hunter" advancement, and they are now required for the "Monsters Hunted" advancement.
 * Breeding hoglins can unlock now "The Parrots and the Bats" advancement, and are required for the "Two by Two" advancement. Breeding striders count towards "The Parrots and the Bats" advancement; however, striders are not required for the "Two by Two" advancement.


 * Ambience


 * New mood detection algorithm for cave sounds.
 * Aims to make ambient cave sounds play at more appropriate moments.
 * Mood increases the longer a player remains underground.
 * Mood increases the longer a player remains without or in the low sky light or block light.
 * Mood decreases and eventually resets the longer a player is neither underground nor in the absence of light.
 * The player can check the percentage of the mood in the sounds info section in the debug screen.
 * When the mood percentage reaches 100%, an ambient cave sound will play.


 * Enchantments
 * If the player has the Mending enchantment on any items, XP will now always go to healing the items before going to the XP bar.
 * Before, the enchantment would randomly choose an item when XP was received. If the item was fully healed, the XP would go to the XP bar.


 * Fishing


 * When fishing, treasure loot can now only be obtained by fishing in open waters.
 * A fishing location is considered to be open water if each layer in the 5x4x5 area around the bobber meets one and only one of the following criteria:
 * Have only water source blocks, waterlogged blocks without collision, or bubble columns.
 * Have only air or lily pads.


 * Knockback resistance


 * Is now a scale of the amount of knockback taken instead of a probability to take no knockback.


 * Patrols


 * Patrols no longer spawn when the player is close to any intact village.


 * Recipe book


 * The cartography table recipe now unlocks with paper instead of string.
 * Stained glass pane recipes now only unlock when the player has the same color of stained glass in their inventory.
 * Charcoal now unlocks using the item tag.


 * Sounds


 * Updated block sounds for bone blocks, netherrack, soul sand, nether wart blocks, nether bricks (and variants), and nether quartz ore.
 * and sounds are now part of the "ambient/environment" sound category adjustable in options.
 * Shearing sound category was changed from "friendly creatures" to "players" for players using shears and to "blocks" for dispensers using shears.


 * Spawn


 * Players can reset their spawn point using a bed when hostile mobs are near, although players still cannot sleep when hostile mobs are near.

General

 * Accessibility
 * Chat component style can now select font.
 * Full range of Unicode characters is supported, making it possible to type emojis.


 * Attributes
 * Items and entities no longer keep unknown attributes.
 * Attribute names are now namespaced.
 * Names of some attributes have been renamed to meet namespaced ID requirements (i.e., lowercase separated by underscores instead of camel case).
 * Changed.
 * Changed.
 * Changed.
 * Changed.
 * Changed.
 * Changed.
 * Changed.
 * Changed
 * Changed
 * Changed
 * Changed.


 * Chat messages


 * Changed "Your home bed was missing or obstructed" to "You have no home bed or respawn anchor, or it was obstructed".


 * client.jar


 * Removed Realms code from the client, but its assets remain.


 * Debug menu


 * When outside the world's vertical area, the debug menu no longer lists 'minecraft:the_void' as the biome.
 * Instead, it simply hides the biome information.


 * Loot Tables


 * Entity Predicate
 * Added sub-predicate.
 * Check properties of the fishing hook.
 * parameter matches whether the fishing location is open water fishing or not.
 * Can be set to "false" in-game files to make AFK fishing farms work again. This will remove the restriction of only being able to obtain loot from normal waters.
 * Can be set to "false" in-game files to make AFK fishing farms work again. This will remove the restriction of only being able to obtain loot from normal waters.


 * Main menu


 * The main menu background is now in the Nether.
 * The "Singleplayer" button will jump directly to "Create World" screen if there are no worlds to select.


 * Materials


 * Added new nether wood material.
 * Uses the wood material color.
 * Uses default properties.


 * Models


 * All "block states" files have improved spacing, and now define the namespace when referring to the model.
 * All model files now define the namespace when referring to a different model.


 * Particles


 * [[File:Glint.png]] Bone meal particles
 * Now use 64-bit floats for spawning, not 32-bit.
 * This means that using bone meal at high distances from the world origin (notably greater than 17 million) will cause the particles to appear in expected places, and not far away from the target.


 * Realms


 * Removed translation strings of:


 * Rendering


 * Improved entity shadows to the ground.


 * Statistics


 * General statistics are now ordered alphabetically in the statistics menu.


 * Tags


 * Added crimson and warped wooden items to the block tags.
 * Added crimson and warped wooden items to the item tags.
 * Added polished blackstone, and (where applicable) blackstone blocks and items to the block and item tags.
 * Added potted crimson fungus, warped fungus, crimson roots, and warped roots to the block tag.
 * Added crying obsidian and respawn anchor to the block tag.
 * Updated block tag.
 * Added fungi, roots, and nylium variants.
 * Removed netherrack variant.
 * The block and item tags now use the respective  tag.
 * Changed the block and item tags to use the  block and item tags, respectively.
 * Changed the item tag to use the  item tag and the Pigstep music disc.


 * The Nether


 * Changed the ambient lighting in the Nether; it is now much darker.


 * UUIDs


 * UUIDs of the owners of projectiles, such as arrows or snowballs, are now stored as an array of four integers. All UUIDs will be stored in this format in the future.
 * UUIDs stored in NBT are also represented as an array of four integers.
 * Example:
 * Renamed a couple of fields:
 * of tamed animals, area effect clouds, evoker fangs and projectiles is now simply.
 * of foxes is now.
 * of conduits is now.


 * World save files


 * Region files are now opened in synchronous mode to increase prevent data loss and corruption after a crash.
 * Dedicated servers can disable that by changing sync-chunk-writes inside server.properties.


 * Miscellaneous
 * Added a JMX MBean to monitor dedicated server tick times.

Unconfirmed features
These features were mentioned during the development of Java Edition 1.16 or earlier, or during MINECON Live 2019, but have not been confirmed to be added in this update.

Blocks

 * Beehives


 * An in-game mechanism to see how many bees are in a hive may be added.


 * Fletching tables


 * May get functionality. It was mentioned during the development of Village & Pillage that it would be added in "...the next major themed update..."
 * Later statements said they "can't promise anything for 1.16," though nothing was firmly deconfirmed.
 * As smithing tables received functionality in 20w10a, fletching tables might also receive functionality.

Mobs

 * More mobs in general may be added.
 * This was stated before the addition of the strider and zoglin, which may have fulfilled this statement.


 * Illusioners


 * May be added to raids. This announcement, made at MINECON Live 2019, is similar to one made at MINECON Earth 2018, in which brown mooshrooms were announced and added in the following major update, Java Edition 1.14 (1.13 for Bedrock Edition).


 * Pigs


 * The feature of pigs transforming to zombified piglins when struck by lightning may be removed or changed.

MINECON Live 2019
Screenshots of the Nether Update from MINECON Live 2019:

Videos
Videos made by slicedlime:

Trivia

 * This update hosts the largest addition of new blocks into the Java Edition of the game, adding a total of 74. This surpasses Java Edition 1.12 of the World of Color Update, which added 63 different block variants.
 * Starting with 1.16, all major update version numbers will be the same for both the.
 * 1.16 is the first update to add a new set of tools and armor since Java Edition Indev.
 * The main menu panorama doesn't include any mobs, new or old, and is the first to do so since 1.13 when version-specific menu panoramas started being used.