Village & Pillage

Village and Pillage is an upcoming major update with a possible release date in early 2019. The official name for the update, Village and Pillage, was revealed on September 29, 2018, during the MINECON Earth 2018 livestream. This update will be released for Java Edition as version 1.14, while Bedrock Edition will receive this update starting from version 1.8 which is set for release near the end of 2018.

Notable features

 * New blocks:
 * 14 new stairs, including, stone, smooth stone, diorite, andesite, granite (and their polished variants), mossy cobblestone and smooth sandstone stairs.
 * 14 new slabs, including stone, diorite, andesite, granite (and their polished variants), mossy cobblestone and smooth sandstone slabs.
 * 12 new walls, including diorite, andesite, granite, bricks, sandstone, prismarine, prismarine bricks and dark prismarine.
 * Campfires
 * Bamboo
 * Generate in bamboo forests in jungles
 * Scaffolding
 * Can be climbed quickly.
 * The player can build a pillar of scaffolding by just pressing use on the top face of a scaffolding block.
 * The whole structure breaks when the bottom block is broken.
 * The bottom and sides have no collision detection.
 * New items:
 * Crossbows
 * Stronger than bows, but slower to reload.
 * Will be able to be enchanted with new enchantments:
 * Multi-Shot
 * Fires three arrows at once in different directions.
 * Fast Reload
 * Increases the reload speed.
 * Piercing
 * Projectile pierce through enemies.
 * Can shoot firework rockets holding the crossbow in one hand and the fireworks in the other.
 * Can be crafted.
 * Dyes
 * Added white dye, blue dye, brown dye and black dye.
 * Items previously used as dyes (bone meal, lapis lazuli, cocoa beans and ink sacs) can still be used.
 * Berries
 * A food item.
 * Found on berry bushes
 * New mobs:
 * Foxes
 * Spawn in taiga biomes.
 * Pillagers
 * Another subset of villagers.
 * Wield crossbows.
 * Will raid, or take over, villages, killing villagers.
 * Illager beasts
 * Large, bull-like creatures with armor and saddles.
 * Very tough.
 * Destroy crops and leaves.
 * Pandas
 * Usually passive.
 * Spawn in bamboo forests inside jungles.
 * Eat bamboo items.
 * Have varying personalities and traits.
 * Can be lazy, playful, or aggressive.
 * Their emotions can be read on their faces.
 * Baby pandas can sneeze, startling the parent.
 * Have a rare brown variant

Trivia

 * This is the first update to not have "Update" in its official name.
 * The pillagers were previously mentioned by Jeb in response to a suggestion posted on Reddit.