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1.16 is an upcoming major update to Java Edition that overhauls the Nether, set to release sometime in 2020.[2] This update was announced at MINECON Live 2019.[1] The update does not include the announced features for the mountains biome.[3]

Additions

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 pickaxe or better is required to mine it.
  • Always spawns covered by lava and/or blocks on all sides.
Basalt
Block of netherite
Crimson and warped fungus
Crimson and warped nylium
Crimson and warped planks
Crimson and warped roots
Crimson and warped stems
  • Blocks that comprise the trunks of huge fungi.
  • Has animated textures.
  • Has a top texture similar to regular log blocks.
  • Can be placed directionally, similarly to logs.
  • Does not burn.
  • Have respective stripped variants.
Crying obsidian
Respawn anchor
  • Used to respawn in the Nether.
  • Crafted with crying obsidian and glowstone.
  • Charged with glowstone: Each respawn consumes one charge, up to four.
  • Click on anchor to set your spawnpoint.
  • Explodes if clicked on in the overworld.
Hyphae
  • A variant of stems with the bark on all 6 sides.
  • Also has a stripped variant.
Nether Gold Ore
Nether sprouts
Shroomlight
Soul fire
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.
  • Have an animated texture.
Soul fire torch
  • Gives off a light level of 10.
  • Crafted similarly to a normal torch, with soul soil being placed under the stick.
Soul soil
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 block and 4 redstone dust pieces.
  • Can be mined with any tool, but hoes are the most efficient.
Twisting vines
  • Generates in the warped forest.
  • Is placed on the top of a block and grows upward.
  • Can be climbed, like normal vines.
Warped wart block
  • A variation of the nether wart block.
  • Generates as a part of huge warped fungi. Sometimes generates in the ground replacing the warped nylium in warped forest biome.
Weeping vines
  • Generates in the crimson forest.
  • Is placed on the bottom of a block and grows downward.
  • Can be climbed, like other vines.
Nether plants

The 2 variations of the new nether-colored blocks, purple and blue.

Items

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.
Netherite axe, hoe, pickaxe, shovel, and sword
  • Upgraded using a smithing table with a netherite ingot and the respective diamond item.
  • Does not burn in lava.
  • Floats in lava.
  • Has higher durability, mining level, breaking multiplier, and enchantability than diamond.
  • All items, except the hoe, deal 1 more damage than their diamond counterparts.
  • Hoes are now the appropriate tool for mining sponge.
Netherite ingot
Netherite scrap
Spawn eggs

Mobs

Hoglins
Piglins

World generation

Biomes
Structures

Command format

/locatebiome
  • Used to locate specific biomes.

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.
Enchanting
Sounds

General

Ambience
  • Added 95 ambient sounds to the Nether.
  • Different sounds play in each Nether biome.
  • New cave sound algorithm
Particles
  • Added ash, crimson_spore, soul_fire_flame, and warped_spore particles.
  • Added three particles for crying obsidian: dripping_obsidian_tear, falling_obsidian_tear, and landing_obsidian_tear.
  • Added a new particle type: soul.
Tags
Text
  • Added text which was missing for a death message and was displaying a raw translation string - what it says exactly is unknown.[6]
Textures
  • Added the zombified piglin entity texture.
  • Added the leather, chainmail, iron, golden, diamond and netherite helmet textures used for piglins.

Changes

Blocks

Bamboo saplings
  • Renamed to "Bamboo Shoot".
Beacons
Bees
  • Bees can now only wander about 22 blocks from it's home hive.
Bells
  • Will now ring when hit by any projectile.
Bone blocks
Campfires
  • Will now ignite when hit by any burning projectile.
Fire
Flower pots
  • Has a bottom texture when empty.
Fishing
  • In order to obtain fishing loot, you need to be fishing in open waters
Gravel and soul sand
Lava
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
Observers and redstone blocks
Parrots
  • Imitates hostile mobs less often
  • Does not imitate hostile mobs on Peaceful difficulty anymore
Pistons and sticky pistons
  • Hardness has been increased to 1.5.
  • Pickaxes are now more efficient on pistons.[7]
  • Pistons can now support non-solid blocks on its top face without them popping off when the piston retracts.[8]
Purpur pillar
Redstone dust
  • Has a bottom texture.
Smithing tables
  • Added functionality: it is used to upgrade diamond items into Netherite versions.
    • Enchantments on the diamond item are preserved when upgrading into Netherite.
Smooth quartz
  • Renamed to "smooth quartz block".
Snow
Soul sand
  • Soul sand with a rail on top will no longer slow-down minecarts.
  • Doors, rails, buttons, torches, pressure plates and redstone can now be placed on it.
TNT
  • Will now ignite 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 none, low, and tall for east, west, north, and south directional values.

Items

Bone meal
Clay
  • Renamed to "clay ball".
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
Spawn eggs
  • Using a spawn egg on a mob that doesn't have a baby variant now spawns an adult of that mob type.

Mobs

Endermen
Fish
  • Now despawn when they are further than 64 blocks away from the closest player.
    • Does not apply to fish placed by the player or nametagged fish.[9]
Ghasts
Skeletons
Skeleton horses and zombie horses
Wither
Zombie pigmen

Non-mob entities

Item frames
  • Have two new data tags:
    • Invisible – makes item frame invisible (item inside frame remains visible).
    • Fixed – prevents item frame from being broken and the item inside from being removed (it does not prevent item rotation).
Minecart
  • Now checks dismount position height against entity height.

World generation

Biomes
  • Biomes in the Nether may now differ based on altitude.
Ceiling
  • Alongside mushrooms, huge crimson and warped fungi can generate over y=128 in the Nether.
Nether biome
  • The old "Nether" biome is now called "Nether wastes".
Structures

Commands

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

Gameplay

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.
Sounds
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

Advancements
  • Piglins and hoglins are now required for "Monster Hunter" and "Monsters Hunted" advancements.
client.jar
  • Removed Realms code from the client, though 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.
Entity 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.
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.
Realms
  • Removed translation strings of:
    • mco.create.world.seed.
    • mco.trial.title.
    • mco.trial.unavailable.
The Nether
  • Changed the ambient lighting in the Nether, it is now much darker.
Rendering
  • Improved entity shadows to the ground.
Tags
  • Added crimson and warped wooden items to the planks, standing_signs, wall_signs, wooden_buttons, wooden_doors, wooden_fences, wooden_pressure_plates, wooden_slabs, wooden_stairs, and wooden_trapdoors block tags.
  • Added crimson and warped wooden items to the planks, signs, wooden_buttons, wooden_doors, wooden_fences, wooden_pressure_plates, wooden_slabs, wooden_stairs, and wooden_trapdoors item tags.
  • Added potted crimson fungus, warped fungus, crimson roots, and warped roots to the flower_pots block tag.
  • Added crying obsidian to the dragon_immune block tag.
  • Updated block tag enderman_holdable.
  • The slabs block and item tags now use the respective wooden_slabs tag.

Fixes

130 issues fixed
From released versions before 1.16
  • MC-2591 – Walking over the corner of lava deals damage.
  • MC-7424 – Fall damage death messages do not show block players fall from correctly (ladders, vines, water).
  • MC-10727 – Player and entity shadows experience z-fighting with redstone.
  • MC-17431 – Shift-clicking stacked items with a data tag into the enchanting table GUI removes data tags from the moved item.
  • MC-45619 – Water, signs, vines, torches, etc. in the same block as item frame break the item frame's redstone signal.
  • MC-52178 – Cape does not move down while sneaking and detaches from body while sneaking.
  • MC-59363 – Items in item frames are deleted if both mouse buttons are used simultaneously.
  • MC-64334 – Fire can be destroyed if given an item with CanDestroy tag for unbreakable block below (notably bedrock).
  • MC-64871 – Can not sleep while on fire, even with Fire Resistance.
  • MC-65951 – Armor stands fall through fences.
  • MC-75328/clear does not clear items in the inventory crafting grid.
  • MC-79944 – Various statistics overflow at 32-bit integer limit.
  • MC-81659 – Fireball and witherskull hitboxes are frequently invisible for some seconds.
  • MC-82235 – Baby pigs turn into adult zombie pigmen when struck by lightning.
  • MC-85527 – Shulkers opening into blocks.
  • MC-89043 – Slime blocks moved by pistons often fail to bounce up the player.
  • MC-91522 – Shulker rendering position desync and generates ghost shulker when destroying shulker-ridden boat or minecart.
  • MC-92889 – Mending does not always consume experience if the player wears items with mending that are already fully repaired.
  • MC-93198 – Throwing potions or throwable projectiles cause both hands to bob up and down.
  • MC-93477 – Shulkers opening into shulker.
  • MC-93631 – Pistons pop off blocks attached to their back when retracting.
  • MC-93813 – Snow golems throwing snowballs play arrow shooting sound.
  • MC-94094 – Snow golems do not drop their pumpkin when sheared.
  • MC-94730 – Endermen become passive when teleporting randomly during day while being aggressive.
  • MC-96436 – Eggs, snowballs, and experience bottles break instantly when thrown while riding a horse.
  • MC-97958 – Small slime has no jump or squish sound.
  • MC-101084 – Held items/blocks appear to bob down and up when opening a horse's inventory.
  • MC-101364 – Mobs and players sometimes dismount vehicles in a dangerous place.
  • MC-102319 – Nether portal trigger and travel sounds are not assigned to any sound category.
  • MC-103655 – Cats do not stand up when using right-click on them while they are sitting on chests or beds.
  • MC-104900 – Skeletons, illusioners and piglins with crossbows have broken agility reaction when hit or walking on certain blocks when provoked.
  • MC-104949 – Mobs can't jump shorter than half of the blocks.
  • MC-109370 – Bottom face of column blocks is rotated 180 degrees.
  • MC-109844en_us.json contains unused strings.
  • MC-109850 – Redstone wire does not have a bottom texture.
  • MC-111133 – Piston pushing opened shulker makes said shulker glitch.
  • MC-111437 – Player activated fireworks do not count as a player kill.
  • MC-111475 – Fireworks cannot hurt invulnerable mobs when player in creative mode.
  • MC-111498 – Fireworks and water bottle damage do not make neutral mobs angry or hostile.
  • MC-111502 – Fireworks damage does not make passive mobs flee in panic.
  • MC-111726 – Minecart dismount position always above the minecart, even if there is space next to it.
  • MC-112630 – Carrot on a stick cannot be broken.
  • MC-113381 – Falling dust particles of anvil and concrete powder blocks are black.
  • MC-114304 – Retracting piston pushes entities standing behind the back of it.
  • MC-120335 – Flower pot bottom texture is not rendered because of incorrect uv values in the model file.
  • MC-122187 – Teleported to coordinates wrong when teleporting entities relatively.
  • MC-122335 – Projectiles go through an entity if it is close to a player or a snow golem.
  • MC-122715/teleport command no longer prevents teleporting to invalid coordinates.
  • MC-128247 – Dolphins can jump way too far causing them to hit on land.
  • MC-130906 – Dolphins are moving very fast when near a boat.
  • MC-131046 – Angry dolphins give players dolphin's grace.
  • MC-131440 – The message for trying to sleep at the wrong time implies that players can sleep only during a thunderstorm at night.
  • MC-131770 – Rain particles appear one block below the water or lava surface.
  • MC-132607 – Splitting slimes and magma cubes do not copy NoAI value.
  • MC-132967 – Mushrooms show as green dots on map.
  • MC-133088 – Missing translation string death.attack.magic.player.
  • MC-134162 – Item entities can break turtle eggs.
  • MC-134481 – Typo in en_us.json: "Status requst has been handled".
  • MC-134900server.properties generator-settings for level-type FLAT not implemented; property is stored in ignored flat_world_options NBT.
  • MC-135034 – Burning mobs are extinguished by snow in cold biomes, but not in snowy biomes.
  • MC-135151 – Typo in en_us.json: "An error occured!".
  • MC-136063 – Incorrect spacing for entity.minecraft.tropical_fish.type.sunstreak's value.
  • MC-136868 – Ignited TNT, arrow or trident turns black when it falls on soul sand or snow layers.
  • MC-137554 – Shearing sound is in "friendly creatures" sound category.
  • MC-138402 – Waterlogged walls "connect" to water source blocks above.
  • MC-138600 – Cats do not bring gifts if they have already decided to sit on the user's bed.
  • MC-140544 – Pickaxes do not speed up piston breaking.
  • MC-145140 – Fireballs cannot be interacted with when summoned.
  • MC-146824 – Ladders and tripwire hooks cannot be placed on the sides of redstone blocks, observers and target blocks.
  • MC-146834 – Zombie pigman's head bottom texture is flipped.
  • MC-146928 – Can't place doors, rails, buttons, pressure plate, redstone, etc. on soul sand.
  • MC-147496 – Dolphin tries to catch the boat of the non-player ride.
  • MC-147601 – Purpur pillar block top texture has not changed to a new texture.
  • MC-147708 – Putting out fires is not considered mining a block, leading to strange effects.
  • MC-148067 – Snow golems damaged by snowfall in mountain/cold biomes.
  • MC-148474 – Sloped powered detector rails break when pushed or pulled by a piston.
  • MC-148869 – Player can clip through the ground when exiting a minecart or a boat.
  • MC-148935 – Zombies with no AI still convert into drowned.
  • MC-149042 – Minecart dismount position is not consistent.
  • MC-149052 – Stonecutter recipe list does not show item tooltips.
  • MC-149776 – Cartography table requires string for the recipe to show up in the recipe book.
  • MC-150020 – Composter is in the "Miscellaneous" category instead of "Decoration" like the other workstation blocks.
  • MC-152441 – Corner quartz stairs (not corner smooth quartz stairs) do not have the border on the back/bottom that a normal quartz stair would have.
  • MC-154867 – Tamed cats remain sitting if the world is reloaded while the cat is sitting on a chest.
  • MC-155977 – Enchanting a book makes the book lose its name.
  • MC-158807 – Players can remove cursed enchantments on items by repairing them in inventory.
  • MC-159300 – Villagers that have been infected by a zombie can despawn, even if they have been traded with.
  • MC-159672 – Vex will occasionally try to attack the player in Creative or Spectator.
  • MC-159773 – Shulkers can teleport to non-solid faces, and do not teleport to some solid faces.
  • MC-159918 – Foxes do not run from polar bears.
  • MC-159963 – Minecarts can break turtle eggs.
  • MC-160053 – Enderman keeps following the player after becoming neutral/passive.
  • MC-160897 – Dropping an item using the drop key displays the hand animation but dropping items from within the inventory does not.
  • MC-160902 – Arm swings when right-clicking on full minecart.
  • MC-161156 – Silverfish and endermites appear black on soul sand.
  • MC-161259 – Using the carrot on a stick while riding a pig plays no hand animation.
  • MC-162881 – Composter does not display particles when being fed composting items through a hopper.
  • MC-163286/setblock ~ ~ ~ air destroy does not destroy liquids.
  • MC-163655 – Fire cannot be targeted like other blocks.
  • MC-164158 – Lava does not emit smoke during rainfall.
  • MC-164184 – Breaking a shulker box with contents in Creative mode drops the block at an incorrect location.
  • MC-164435 – Stream sounds do not loop properly.
  • MC-164948 – Entity shadow renders through transparent blocks.
  • MC-165518 – Village houses desert_temple_1 and plains_temple_4 have no floor at entrance.
  • MC-166245 – No sound for shearing snow golems.
  • MC-166246 – Skeleton horses cannot be leashed.
  • MC-167077 – Foxes sleep on top of honey blocks, even in broad daylight.
  • MC-167447 – Wrong RenderStateShard name.
  • MC-167512 – Glass in the hand is rendered differently depending on the "Clouds" setting.
  • MC-167561 – All players can make a dog stand up or sit down.
  • MC-167692 – Infested blocks do not spawn silverfish when blown up.
  • MC-167989 – Spawn point is not set when monsters are nearby.
  • MC-168319 – Fireworks sometimes don't explode when launched at the edge or under a block.
  • MC-168540 – Threads created by net.minecraft.Util.backgroundExecutor() have misleading names.
  • MC-168748 – Rapid cod spawning and despawning causing performance issues.
  • MC-168772 – Experience orbs can crush turtle eggs.
  • MC-169533 – Asymmetrical walls in snowy_cartographer_house_1.
  • MC-169679 – Composters do not make sounds when fed by hoppers.
  • MC-169692 – Entity shadow floats slightly above the ground.
  • MC-169715 – Misrotated block in snowy_small_house_3.
  • MC-169832 – Transparent item models have inconsistent rendering when a glowing entity is present.
  • MC-169869 – Mooshroom using incorrect texture in Programmer Art.
  • MC-170128 – Cannot build an EntityType without a datafixer due to an IllegalArgumentException.
  • MC-170242 – Asymmetrical walls in taiga_medium_house_4.
  • MC-170273 – Diamond swords use the wrong pallet.
  • MC-170274 – Pickaxe textures are inconsistent.
  • MC-170470 – At snowy_library_1, the snow block is placed next to the window, which causes ugly visual effect.
  • MC-170556 – Hoe textures are inconsistent.
  • MC-170836 – Cannot set the top of soul sand on fire.
  • MC-172025 – Several misrotated blocks at snowy_medium_house_2.

Planned additions

Blocks

Fungus
  • A way to obtain both crimson and warped fungi in a renewable way not involving bartering.[10]

Mobs

  • More mobs in general will be added.[11]

World generation

Bastions

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.[12]
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..."[13][14]
  • As smithing tables recieved functionality in 20w10a, fletching tables might also receive functionality.

Mobs

Pigs

World generation

Biomes
  • Another nether biome may be added.[16]

Gallery

MINECON Live 2019

Screenshots of the Nether Update from MINECON Live 2019:

Subsequent screenshots

Concept artwork

References

  1. a b c "Everything We Announced at MINECON Live 2019" – Minecraft.net, September 28, 2019
  2. a b "What we've announced is "this year""@jeb_ (Jens Bergensten) on X, January 13, 2020
  3. "But mountains will come in a later update."@MiaLem_n (Maria Lemón) on X, September 28, 2019
  4. 171413 resolved as "Works As Intended"
  5. "Hmmmm.... OK gotta teach the piglins how not to kill off all the hoglins at once."@henrikkniberg on X, December 13, 2019
  6. MC-133088
  7. 140544 — Pickaxes don't speed up piston breaking
  8. 93631 — Pistons pop off blocks attached to their back when retracting
  9. "It was 128 blocks before. This doesn't apply to anything marked persistent, like nametagged fish or fish caught in a bucket and then released again."u/sliced_lime on Reddit, March 4, 2020
  10. MC-173237 - see comments
  11. "There will be more mobs, don't worry"@jeb_ (Jens Bergensten) on X, January 13, 2020
  12. "Open to suggestions!"@Cojomax99 on X, March 4, 2020
  13. "Minecraft Snapshot 19w11a" – Minecraft.net, March 12, 2019
  14. "Not in 1.15 and I can't promise anything for 1.16 either I'm afraid."@MiaLem_n (Maria Lemón) on X, September 30, 2019
  15. "We will likely remove that feature, because it will work differently"@jeb_ (Jens Bergensten) on X, September 29, 2019
  16. "At the time I really thought there was going to be another biome, but unfortunately we cannot promise it now (personally I really hope for another one though). There are so many cool prototypes for Nether Update and we prioritise the ones that add most fun to our dear game! <3"@_LadyAgnes (Agnes Larsson) on X, February 17, 2020
  17. https://twitter.com/henrikkniberg/status/1202598609407135745
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