Java Edition mentioned features

Since the beginning of Minecraft's development, there have been a number of features that were mentioned by Mojang AB developers. These features are either currently planned for the next update, but have not yet appeared in a development version, or have simply been dropped or forgotten about.

Note that this page only documents features that were mentioned but are not yet in the game. Features in development versions are described on the parent version page.

Planned
These features are planned to come to Minecraft sometime in the future, in an update that has not yet been determined.

Combat change
Jeb revealed this to a participant in the MineCon Earth costume contest, who later revealed it to the Minecraft Community on a Reddit post. Blocking will no longer by activated by ; or walking backwards will activate it instead.

Off-hand changes
Changes with the off-hand slot added in 1.9 are also planned on being added to Minecraft sometime in the future. Specifically, the player will no longer be able to or place blocks with any item in their left-hand slot. However, players will still be able to hold items in the off-hand slot, which still makes the off-hand useful for maps and such. Also, blocking will still be able to be activated if the player is holding a shield in their off-hand. However, this regression was later retracted due to massive community backlash.

Partially implemented
These features had been shown by a Mojang staff member, but either had no further development or were canceled shortly after.

Dirt slab


Before stone slabs were added to 0.26, Notch ran a test using dirt slabs replacing dirt blocks.

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 can be dyed. The dyed planks were abandoned after Dinnerbone realized they would also require slabs and stairs of each color. The six existing wood species eventually got unique doors, fences and fence gates, and soon will be receiving buttons, trapdoors and pressure plates.

Lantern
Lanterns were crafted blocks originally planned to be added in the Halloween Update. However, they were delayed due to lack of time and were going to be implemented in a future update.

With the addition of the lantern, torches would flicker out and need to be re-lit with flint and steel. The lantern would serve as a permanent source of light. According to Notch, when the update would occur, all torches placed on the map, in the inventory, and in chests (tile entities) prior to the update would be converted to lanterns. To do this, the lanterns would use the (former) block ID of torches along with a re-skin.

On January 13, 2011 Notch claimed that lanterns were "postponed", and added on January 20 that he was "not sure" when they would be implemented. Notch announced on November 18, 2011, at the Mojang Panel at MineCon 2011, that lanterns would not be added to Minecraft due to large negative community response towards the effects the new item would have had on torches. Instead, other types of lighting would be added, such as redstone lamps and glowstone.

Sea lanterns were added in 1.8 snapshot 14w25a, with the addition of ocean monuments. However, these sea lanterns did not make any change to how torches function; they can still be lit up for infinity.

Lectern
The Lectern was an old project of Dinnerbone's. It was meant to be a stand for books so you could easily read them. He was well on his way to creating it when he encountered problems and scrapped the idea, but mentioned that he might pick up work on the lectern in the near future. Dinnerbone stated in his Reddit AMA on December 18, 2013 that he had revisited lecterns but scrapped them again as "something about them just didn't feel right".

Sky Dimension
The Sky Dimension was a planned dimension in Minecraft, intended to be the opposite of the Nether. It was ultimately replaced by the End.

Mentioned
These features were mentioned at one point but later abandoned or their current status is unknown. Note that some of these features were mentioned by developers who either no longer work at Mojang, or no longer work on Minecraft.

Audio loops
Audio loops have not yet been added to the game, but may be implemented to play when the player is in a specific location (In caves, forests, oceans, and beside a waterfall). This has been partially added in 1.4 with the addition of lava and water ambient sounds. Loop sounds have been partially added for underwater areas in snapshot 18w10a.

Friends list
Notch mentioned on his blog, The Word of Notch, that friends lists would be added after Beta 1.8. The Minecraft documentary team of 2 Player Productions filmed a Keynote roadmap, containing these lines. Kristoffer mentioned on Twitter that he is currently working on friends lists for Scrolls, then for other Mojang games. These will be available for players with Mojang accounts. At MineCon 2012 Jeb stated that it would be a large implementation on the server side and will be used for all Mojang games, and that is a big project.

Lua scripting
Lua Scripting was a feature mentioned by Notch as a way to create server side modifications.

Players will not have to download scripts within or outside of the client, and therefore no client-side modifications will be necessary.

The server would be able to create custom commands, assign certain server functions to blocks, and create user groups.

Notch has said that he wanted Lua to be an extension for Minecraft. He does not want Lua to turn Minecraft into a game engine. Essentially, Lua, although a nice addition, will not revolutionize game-play in Minecraft.

Resource packs
Erik Broes mentioned that there may be easier customization of chat and sheep colors.

Ryan Holtz stated that he wanted to improve the rendering system to allow for customizable models and animations. Dinnerbone later stated that player models would not be able to be changed.

Panda
Dinnerbone once tweeted about pandas in response to the question "If you could code any mob into the game, what would it be?"

On December 18, 2013, on Reddit, Dinnerbone answered the question "If you could add one feature to Minecraft without the hassle of coding or modeling, just anything, and you wouldn't need anyone's permission: What do?".

Red dragon
Notch revealed during the 8th Seecret Friday Update that he would add dragons, one being the ender dragon, the other being red dragons. Jeb informed participants of his AMA on Reddit that he would add red dragons, but was unsure exactly how. The red dragon has not subsequently been added.

On October 22, 2013, Dinnerbone tweeted that the red dragon is "shelved" and not in development.

Later, on December 15, 2013, Dinnerbone wrote on Reddit that there will be red dragons in Minecraft one day.

Seasons
Dinnerbone mentioned on Twitter that he was experimenting with adding seasons, and varying the length of day and night according to season. He also mentioned it during MineCon 2013. Seasons may include changes in color of tree leaves and may also be tied to real time.

Spike block
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.

Inventory changes
An inventory rewrite was originally added in the snapshot 14w17a for 1.8, but a roadblock was hit and they had to shelve it before the release of 1.8. Other changes to the inventory have been mentioned, including spectators can now look at people's inventory, visible health/armor bar on all players,, seeing players' GUI when spectating from their POV and the return of shift-double-clicking.

Brief mentions
These features were briefly mentioned, but no further information was given after that.

General features

 * Partially implemented : More animals such as fish, birds, and tree animals, to make the game seem more alive. Partially added in 1.12 with parrots, and in 1.13 with fish mobs.
 * Partially implemented / Planned feature : More sea life Partially added in 1.8 with guardians. More implementation will be in 1.13, including fish mobs and dolphins.
 * Partially implemented : More structures in biomes Partially added in 1.11 with Woodland Mansions and End Cities, the latter of which were *totally* added in 1.11, and more implementation in 1.13 with shipwrecks and ocean ruins.
 * More dimensions
 * Partially implemented : More rare structures and terrain changes Partially added with Ice Spikes.
 * More ores and cave types
 * Height-based content, something like vertical biomes.
 * Partially implemented : All exclusive Pocket Edition features ported to PC Partially added with new boats on 1.9, and partially with the new crafting system on 1.12.
 * Planned feature : Updating all textures to fit better together, stylistically.

More specific features

 * Mentioned in 2009
 * In early development, Notch mentioned two more gamemodes, Team Survival Mode and Fortress Mode, which would include the ability to play Capture the Flag


 * Mentioned in 2010
 * Animated swinging doors
 * Notch once planned to make floating masses of land that required obsidian veins to stay afloat. He later stated that he disliked the idea.
 * Colliding clouds
 * Server portals


 * Mentioned in 2011
 * The ability to choose what work saves to the level files
 * Rainbow crystalline caves
 * Scarecrows
 * Storing of achievements and statistics online
 * Cave maps - Notch stated that they are "an interesting idea".
 * Custom paintings


 * Mentioned in 2012
 * Crying Obsidian
 * Vertical redstone
 * Ability to design village buildings
 * Books editable anywhere, not just at the end of the page
 * Silk touch yielding double half slabs
 * Ability to pause the game in multiplayer, but only for ops. Users will then get to chat until the game is back.
 * Copy and paste support on signs
 * Minecarts usable as boats
 * Fallen trees (like what is currently in Bedrock Edition)
 * A new male mob that has no clothes.
 * More colors and texture pack customizations of maps
 * Flower pots breaking when hit by arrows.
 * Utilizing the space above the Nether ceiling for something else.
 * Partially implemented : Fireworks having effects on mobs, such as scaring wolves. Implemented with elytra boosting and damaging mobs if explosive.
 * Maps would have more support for colors and support Texturepack textures


 * Mentioned in 2013
 * Minecart with dispenser;, the image may have just been showcasing the custom tile displays in minecarts which were added in the next snapshot, 13w02a.
 * Dinnerbone's original demonstration of the  format for resource packs contained a sample properties file for fonts to determine character size and spacing. Despite the game code containing the code to read the files, it never actually uses them leaving character width and spacing to be determined dynamically.
 * Enchanted items apply attributes on use.
 * Cherry trees
 * The ability to remove enchantments from an item.
 * Adding more places to display scoreboard scores.
 * Colored lighting
 * A better UI for server admins/ops, inspired by the twitch user moderation menu.
 * A resource pack-related feature that allows improved Russian font display
 * Better construction analysis
 * Partially implemented : A new system that could alter weapon behavior.
 * This has been partially implemented in 15w34a, with the implementation of attack speed
 * Easier way to implement terrain changes
 * Portable light (e.g. holding a torch in your hand which provides light).
 * A hug animation


 * Mentioned in 2014
 * Basalt
 * Improved camera controls
 * Partially implemented : Rewrite the liquid and lighting engine. Partially implemented in the 1.13 snapshot 18w10c, allowing water to appear to occupy certain non-full blocks.
 * Partially implemented : A gamerule which prevents rain/snow
 * This has been slightly implemented in 16w38a, with the implementation of the gamerule, which disables the weather from changing.
 * Dinnerbone has stated he has an "Ultimate Plan" with endermites that might include the dragon egg.
 * Rewriting the key bind system.
 * Building a custom sound system.
 * Sheep showing their color when shorn, like the Bedrock Edition
 * Multithreaded terrain generation rendering.
 * Fixes to chunk loading.
 * JSON support on signs and possibly implementing a way to "make it work in survival" . Searge later said "The plan is to eventually have every text that can be displayed on the screen use the text component system, then using § won't be necessary anymore."
 * Another rabbit skin
 * Changes to the world format - modularizing and storing in 16 block high sections, ids per chunk Such a feature would likely allow for infinite building height.
 * Ryan Holtz originally mentioned adding a slider for cloud height, though he later stated the idea was controversial among the team so he scrapped it.
 * Using the killer rabbit killing mobs for something.
 * Mesa temple
 * A marker entity.
 * OAuth
 * Reindeer - initially suggested for Christmas 2015.
 * Being able to make the world border's center slowly move


 * Mentioned in 2015
 * Corn
 * In game lore
 * Nether portals placing players in front if possible.
 * Entities possibly being able to switch between weapons - "There are no plans right now for entities to use that [offhand] slot, but it might be a potential change in the future. It's just cleaner to have generic support for the off-hand slot than adding a special-case the player class only."
 * Making it so shields are used to block attacks from the side the shield is held on.
 * A mob which camouflages with its environment - when developing the Shulker mob, Jeb initially had it so that the mob would camouflage with the surroundings, but due to difficulties with the code and rendering, he decided to abandon this element of the mob, but stated that it may happen in the future.
 * Allowing mobs to have additional random skins, similarly to horses, cats and rabbits.
 * Giving the ability to rotate and mirror structures.
 * Minecart improvements after/in 1.10
 * Recipes for seamless slabs. Seamless slabs and bark blocks were added to the creative inventory in 1.13 snapshot 17w47a, with bark blocks given a recipe.


 * Mentioned in 2016
 * Phasing out the minecart with furnace.
 * New musician villager that trades note blocks, jukeboxes, and music discs.
 * A Dragon Head banner pattern
 * If a piston gets powered and is unable to push, showing a smoke particle effect and playing a small "clunk" sound
 * If the bow used to craft a dispenser is enchanted, making the arrows fired from the dispenser to act accordingly


 * Mentioned in 2017
 * Ability to edit the skybox and biome/foliage/light colors in resource packs
 * A "Pillager Illager", and possibly other illagers with different purposes (many suggested as jokes)
 * More illagers
 * Nether gold ore
 * A set of prismarine blocks with a colour scheme matching that of the Elder Guardian, similarly to how regular prismarine imitates normal Guardians.


 * Mentioned in 2018
 * Ability to make water occupy one side of a glass pane but not the other
 * Seals/Sea Lions and/or Orcas

Joke features


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


 * Searge jokingly stated that due to the fact that people didn't dislike the changes in the 15w42a snapshot, he would add a fuel requirement to crafting tables.
 * Koalas in tanks riding on planes with laser rifles was jokingly added to the "maybe later" list by Searge.
 * Hot dogs.
 * Herobrine. In every new major Minecraft update like Halloween Update, Adventure Update, Pretty Scary Update, Redstone Update, Horse Update, The Update That Changed The World, The Bountiful Update, The Combat Update, The Frostburn Update, The Exploration Update, and The World of Color Update, it says "removed Herobrine", but Herobrine was never implemented. This has also appeared in the changelog for Scrolls version 0.103.0.
 * 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. Fish mobs have appeared in the 1.13 snapshot 18w08b, and coral has been implemented in the 1.13 snapshot 18w09a.
 * Pine cones.
 * Dinnerbone joked about adding dwarves when asked about it.
 * SethBling mentioned a downside of command blocks on one of his livestreams, and Dinnerbone joked about removing command blocks to accommodate him.
 * Dinnerbone joked that Minecraft pizza would be a good idea to add, and as a joke KrisJelbring states pizza is confirmed to be added.
 * Mojang has made several April Fools jokes:
 * In 2011, the locked chest or "Steve Co. Supply Crate" was temporarily added which "allowed" various micro-transactions in the game.
 * In 2013, Mojang released Minecraft 2.0 which contained features such as pink withers and redstone bugs.
 * In 2014, the default sounds were replaced with a voice (specifically, that of ElementAnimation, a famous YouTuber group known for making several popular videos about Minecraft) saying the name of the sound's source, the music was replaced with a rendition of the title theme of the TV series Game of Thrones (consisting of the word "door" repeated to the tune of the music), and everyone's skins were replaced with modified versions of the villager textures, edited to fit the player model. This was all blamed on the villagers.
 * In 2015, Mojang released 15w14a, which made all the mobs in the game friendly and lovey.
 * In 2016, Mojang released 1.RV-Pre1, which added trendy items of 2016.
 * In 2017, the Mine & Craft Digital Leisure Device was announced on the Minecraft website.
 * In 2018, Mojang released a glitched texture pack to 1.12 and 1.13 clients.