The Wild Update

This article is about the planned 2022 release that adds the Deep Dark and Mangrove Swamps. For the soundtrack, see Minecraft: Wild Update (Original Game Soundtrack).

The Wild Update is an upcoming major update set to release in 2022 as Java Edition 1.19 and Bedrock Edition 1.19.0, themed around "scary things" and nature. It introduces 2 new biomes, adds many different forms of fauna and flora to the Overworld, and adds to the atmosphere and immersion of the game.

Notable features

Blocks

Froglight

• Is dropped by tiny magma cubes when they are eaten by frogs.
• Has three variants: pearlescent (purple), verdant (green), and ochre (yellow).
  • Which variant is dropped depends on the frog variant that eats the magma cube.
    • A pearlescent froglight is dropped if a warm (white) frog eats the magma cube.
    • A verdant froglight is dropped if a cold (green) frog eats the magma cube.
    • An ochre froglight is dropped if a temperate (orange) frog eats the magma cube.

Frogspawn

• Can't be obtained in survival.
• Is laid by frogs when they are bred with slime balls.
  • Tadpoles are birthed from them soon after.

Mangrove Leaves

• Generated in mangrove trees.
• A decorative block.

Mangrove Log

• Generated as a part of mangrove trees, which are located in swamps and mangrove swamps.
• Can be crafted into mangrove planks and wood.

Mangrove Planks

• Crafted from mangrove logs.
• Can be used to craft respective slabs, stairs, fences, fence gates, pressure plates, signs, buttons, doors, boats and trapdoors.

Mangrove Propagule

• Grows into a mangrove tree when planted.
• Grows underneath mangrove leaves.
• Can be placed both on land and in water, making it the first tree sapling that can be placed underwater.

Mangrove Propagule (Hanging)

• Generated in mangrove leaves.
• Has four growth stages.

Mangrove Roots

• A decorative block.
• Can be waterlogged.

Mud

• Found in mangrove swamp biomes.
• Can be created by using a water bottle on a dirt block.
• Can be placed on top of dripstone to dehydrate and form clay.
  • This in turn enables renewable clay in Bedrock Edition (clay is already renewable in Java Edition).

Mud Bricks

• Crafted using 4 packed mud.
• Can be used to craft respective slab, stair, and wall

Mud Stairs

• Can be crafted from 3 mud bricks.
• You can go up a block without needing to jump. Similar to other stairs.
• Takes 1.15s to mine with a stone pickaxe.

Mud Slabs

• Can be crafted from 3 mud bricks.
• It is a half-sized block and is similar to other slabs.
• Takes 1.15s to mine with a stone pickaxe.

Mud Walls

• Can be crafted from 6 pieces of mud bricks.
• Have similar properties as other stairs.
• Takes 0.6s to mine with a stone pickaxe.

Muddy Mangrove Roots

• Muddy variant of mangrove roots.

Packed Mud

• Crafted using mud and wheat.
• Can be used to craft mud bricks.

Reinforced Deepslate

• Found only in ancient cities.
• It is unobtainable in survival mode.
• Has some unknown "interesting" purpose.
• Currently can be broken only by mining for a long time, and is immune to explosions, withers, and ender dragons.

This image shows sculk blocks in the Redstone tab in creative mode, implying that the other sculk blocks also have redstone uses.

Sculk

• Generates in the deep dark biomes.
• Has an animated texture.
• Drops only experience when broken without Silk Touch.
• Sculk blocks grow underneath a mob corpse around a sculk catalyst.

Sculk Catalyst

• Generates in the deep dark biome.
• Made of sculk and a bone-like material.
• May be used in redstone devices.
• Spreads sculk blocks to wherever a nearby mob dies. The amount it spreads depends on the amount of experience the mob is meant to drop.
  • This means that even if the mob doesn't drop experience as it wasn't killed by a player, the blocks would still spread based on the amount of experience it normally drops.
• Blooms when activated.
• Drops only experience when broken without Silk Touch.
• Emits light.
• Emits soul particles after a mob dies and grows sculk related blocks.

Sculk Shrieker

• Generates in the deep dark biome.
• Has two soul-shaped patterns in the center.
• Has the ability to "shriek", emitting ring-like/sonic particles.
• Is activated by a sculk sensor.
• Gives players the Darkness effect when activated.
• Naturally generated sculk shriekers summon a warden from the ground if activated too many times.
  • Sculk shriekers summon wardens only if there isn't one within 48 blocks.
  • Sculk shriekers placed by the player or grown from a sculk catalyst cannot summon wardens.

Sculk Vein

• Generates in the deep dark biome only.
• Generates in a layer on top of blocks, similar to snow.
• Can be placed in all directions, like glow lichen.
• Has an animated texture.
• Drops nothing when broken without Silk Touch.
• Some have parts that are transparent, allowing the player to see the block it is on top of.
• May be used in redstone as seen in this video when Mojang Studios talks about the sculk sensors.

Items

Spawn Eggs

• Warden spawn egg.
• Frog spawn egg.
• Tadpole spawn egg.
• Allay spawn egg.
• Firefly spawn egg.

Bucket of Tadpole

• Obtained by using a water bucket on a tadpole, similar to obtaining a bucket of fish or axolotls.
• Can be used to transport tadpoles to another location, similarly with fish and axolotls.

Echo Shards

• Can be found only in loot chests of ancient cities.
• Can be used to craft the recovery compass.

Goat Horn

• Drops when a goat rams a tree or any other hard block that occurs naturally where goats spawn.
  • Includes copper ore, emerald ore, iron ore, log, packed ice, or stone.
  • Goats do not ram other solid blocks.
• Can play a loud sound that can be heard from afar.
• Each horn has its own sound based on the goat it originated from.
  • Have 8 variants, 4 of them are exclusive to screaming goats.
    • The 8 variants are: Ponder, Sing, Seek, Feel, Admire, Call, Yearn and Dream
• Can also be found in pillager outposts.

Recovery Compass

• A new type of compass which points to the last place where the player died.
• Randomly spins when the player is not in the same dimension that they last died in.
• Can be crafted by 1 compass surrounded by 8 echo shards.

Disc Fragment

• A fragment of the Music Disc "5", which can be crafted into the disc.
• Can be obtained only from the chests in the ancient cities. They are extremely rare and hard to obtain.

Mangrove Boat

• A new type of boat, crafted with mangrove planks.

Music Disc 5

• A new music disc, by Samuel Åberg, titled "5".
• Obtained by restoring it from a fragmented state: can be obtained only through crafting by using 9 Disc Fragments for the disc.
• Track is similar in nature to “11”.

Mobs

Allay

• Voted to be in the update during Minecraft Live 2021.
• If given a block or item, finds dropped blocks or items of the same type and bring them to the player.
  • Picks up dropped items in loaded chunks and can carry up to a stack at a time, and cannot duplicate items or take items out of chests. It drops its collected items when in range of a note block that was played within 30 seconds.
• Spawn within prisons in Woodland Mansions and cages in Pillager Outposts.

Firefly

• Glows in the dark.
• Is currently two pixels in size, making it the smallest mob in the game.
• Fireflies were originally going to be eaten by frogs to produce Froglights, but this was scrapped after the developers found out that some species of fireflies are poisonous to frogs in real life.

Frog

• Grows from a tadpole.
• Comes in three variants: temperate, cold, and warm.
  • The temperate variant is orange, the warm variant is white, and the cold variant is green.
  • Frog variant depends on the temperature of the biome where it turns from a tadpole to a frog.
  • Each variant is planned to have a unique use for players, which remains unknown.
    • One known use is Froglight production.
• Jumps on lily pads and big dripleaves.
• Has the ability to swim in water.
• Eats small slimes, dropping slime balls.
• Eats small magma cubes, dropping froglights.
• Currently players can use Slimeballs to breed frogs (Might change in the future)
  • Each frog variant drops a different variant of froglight.
    • The temperate frog drops ochre (yellow) froglights.
    • The cold frog drops verdant (green) froglights.
    • The warm frog drops pearlescent (purple) froglights.

Tadpole

• Grows up into a frog after birth. Frog type depends on the temperature of the biome it grows in.
• Can be held in a water bucket.
• Panics on land and pathfinds to a nearby water source.
• Also panics if there are axolotls nearby.

Warden

• Spawns in the deep dark biome, specifically when too many sculk shriekers are activated.
• "Emerges" from the ground when summoned by sculk shriekers.
  • Digs back into the ground when it doesn't sense any vibration after 60 seconds.
• The first fully blind mob (bats have basic eyesight, both in-game and in the real world).
  • Because of this, it stumbles as it walks.
  • Has a sense of smell. It can detect and pathfind toward the general location of a player or mob through a "smelling" action.
    • Prioritizes smelling the player or mob that it is most suspicious of, rather than the one closest to it.
  • Has a sense of vibration. When sensing movement, it pathfinds toward the source of the movement.
    • It follows and attacks players, mobs, and other entities that make vibrations.
      • It does not attack other wardens.
    • When it detects a vibration, the growths on its head rattle and light up, similar to the sculk sensor.
    • Seems to follow the same rules as the sculk sensor when detecting vibrations.
      • If any projectile (e.g. egg, snowball, arrow) lands near it, the warden inspects the location where the projectile landed, due to the projectile creating significant vibrations. This feature can be used in order to cause a distraction.
      • It becomes angry at a player who fires more than two projectiles in five seconds.
    • Does not detect players that are sneaking.
  • Because of this, it can detect players or mobs that have the invisibility effect.
  • It can also feel players that bump into it.
• Becomes more suspicious of a player or mob as it detects its location more through vibrations and/or smelling. When it suspects the target enough, it identifies its exact location, which aggravates it, causing it to pathfind toward the target to attack regardless of outside distractions.
• It is the only mob that spawns in the deep dark biome.
• A mob designed to be extremely difficult, intended to be avoided and fled from.
  • Has a way to counter "cheesing" strategies like pillaring up to avoid attacks. The solution does not involve block breaking. rather, more related to psychological effects.
  • Incredibly strong, doing 32 × 16 damage, bringing players wearing full netherite armor from full health to 7 health points.
  • When the player is out of range for the warden to attack, it uses its ranged attack, a blast of particles that kills the player immediately (without any armor).
  • Currently has 500 × 250 health points.
  • At least as fast as a walking player.
  • Seems to have knockback resistance.
  • Because of this, the warden isn't needed to receive the advancement, Monsters Hunted.
• Warden's chest has a glowing core that appears to brighten and dim in tandem with the Darkness effect.
  • The core creates a low throbbing or "heartbeat" sound as it pulses. The sound and animation speed up rapidly as the warden gets more suspicious of or closer to attacking a player or mob.
• Is about 3.5 blocks tall, making it one of the tallest mobs in the game, exceeding the iron golem and enderman in height. However, the iron golem has a wider hitbox.

World generation

Ancient City

• New structure that generates within the deep dark biome.
• Includes all of the deep dark features within it.
• Made of deepslate and its variants, basalt blocks and its variants, planks, and wool.
• Contains soul sand, soul fire and soul lanterns.
• Contains candles and skeleton skulls.
• Contains chests with unique loot including a unique enchantment, Swift Sneak.
  • The loot is intended to be items that cannot be found anywhere else in the world, and that provide unique abilities and mechanics to players that weren't possible before and are not attainable by other methods.
• Contains a mysterious frame made of Reinforced Deepslate.
• Has different levels and open spaces.
• Extremely large in terms of size, tends to spawn between y=0 and y=-64.

Deep Dark

• New biome at the "deepest depths of the world".
• Originally planned for 1.17, then moved to 1.18, and was then postponed to 1.19 due to increased scope.
• May not contain any water or lava aquifers.
• May be the rarest cave biome in the game.
• Tends to generate under continental/mountainous areas.
• Generates exclusively within the deepslate layer between Y=-1 and Y=-64.
• Contains ancient cities.
• Wardens can spawn there through the activation of sculk shriekers.
• Contains all sculk-related blocks.
• With the exception of spawners, no mobs other than wardens can spawn there, similar to mushroom fields.

Mangrove Swamp

• New biome variant of a swamp.
• Contains mangrove trees, and are the only trees that can generate there unlike the regular swamp that can also generate oak trees.
• Biome surface is composed of mud.

Mangrove Trees

• New type of tree variant.
• Composed of mangrove logs and leaves.
• Generated roots composed of mangrove root blocks.
• Has propagules hanging from the leaves of the tree.
• Found in swamps and mangrove swamp biomes.
• Generates moss carpets on the mangrove roots.

Swamp

• Completely overhauled in the new update.
• Contains mangrove trees.
• Contains mud blocks on the ground.
• Frogs can spawn here.
• Fireflies spawn during the night.

Non-mob entities

An image of two variants of the Boat with Chest shown during Minecraft Live 2021

Boat with Chest

• Similar to a minecart with chest but with a boat instead of a minecart.
• A single player can ride in it.
• Comes in all wood plank variants, including the newly added mangrove wood plank variant.

Gameplay

Enchanting

• Added the Swift Sneak enchantment.
  • This enchantment can be found exclusively in chests in Ancient Cities.
  • Cannot be obtained by fishing, enchanting, trading, or other loot chests, similar to Soul Speed.
  • Has a total of three levels.
  • Available for leggings and boots, but does nothing if applied to boots.
  • Allows the player to walk faster while sneaking.
    • Has an increment of 15% per level, for 45%/60%/75% of your walking speed with level I/II/III, respectively.

Particles

• Sculk Soul
  • Emitted by sculk catalysts when activated by mob deaths.
• Shriek
  • Emitted by sculk shriekers when activated by sculk sensors.
• File:Sculk Charge.gif Sculk Charge
  • Emitted by sculks and sculk veins when a sculk charge generated by sculk catalysts travels along them.
• File:Sonic Explosion.png Sonic Explosion
  • Emitted by wardens when using their ranged attack.

Effects

• Darkness
  • A status effect triggered by the sculk shrieker block, causing the player's camera to dim in brightness, thus limiting the vision of players

Planned changes

Blocks

Clay

• More efficient way to regenerate clay by placing mud over a dripstone block with a stalactite dripstone growing under. The dripstone dries it out, producing a clay block.

File:Sculk Sensor JE1 BE2.gif Sculk Sensor

• Now are able to activate sculk shriekers when activated.
• Now are able to communicate with wardens by activating sculk shriekers.
• Now are able to detect players that are sneaking who step on top of it.
• Now generate in the deep dark biome.
• Now are able to detect wool blocks that are placed on top of Sculk.

World generation

Biomes

• Updating various overworld biomes, such as swamps and birch forests, to make them more diverse, unique and add more immersion to biomes in general.

Videos

Soundtrack

Lena Raine - "Firebugs" (view on YouTube)

Lena Raine - "Aerie" (view on YouTube)

Lena Raine - "Labyrinthine" (view on YouTube)

Trivia

• While this update introduces mud as a block, mud has existed in the franchise as a fluid in Minecraft Earth. The properties of mud in this update are identical to a block.

Gallery

• 

  The Wild Update logo.

• 

  A warden in the deep dark.

• 

  A warden approaching the player.

• 

  The Iron Golem and Warden next to each other.

• 

  Warden and rabbit.

• 

  Player and warden next to each other.

• 

  Mangrove swamp.

• 

  Mangrove tree.

• 

  Mud brick house.

• 

  Fireflies.

• 

  Frog catching fireflies.

• 

  Tadpoles.

• 

  Warden emerging from the ground of the deep dark.

• 

  Ancient city.

• Warden x ancient city sneak peak.jpeg

  A warden within an ancient city.

• Warden Subtitles Reveal.jpeg

  The showcase of the new warden subtitles.

• Tenth Image Leading To A Very Scary Snapshot.jpeg

  The last image in the build up to the Deep Dark Experimental Snapshot.

Concept artwork

Some concept art in this gallery was originally made for the Caves & Cliffs update.

Environments

• 

  The 2 dimensional pixel art of the allay shown at Minecraft Live 2021

• 

  Concept art of the deep dark and ancient city.

• 

  Concepts for how mangrove roots could be portrayed in-game.

• 

  Concept art of the mangrove swamp.

• 

  Concept art of the mangrove swamp at night.

• 

  Concept art of the birch forest.

• 

  Concept art depicting three forested biomes in a sunset setting.

Warden and Sculk

• 

  Sketches of the axolotl and warden.

• 

  A "scale of cuteness" depicting the axolotl, goat, and warden.

• 

  One of the early concept of the warden, referred to as the stalker.

• 

  Various concepts of the warden before sculk's appearance was fully-decided on.

• 

  Early concepts of the warden, featuring a smile on it.

• 

  More early concepts of the warden, involving particles.

• 

  Early concepts of the warden, having white as a main color with sculk referred to as the hollowed.

• 

  In-game visual of a stalker iteration.

• 

  In-game visual of another stalker iteration.

• 

  Unofficial render of the hollowed iteration.

• 

  Early iterations of the warden, using the current sculk colors.

• 

  Sketches of the final iteration of the warden, as well as other iterations for its ears.

• 

  Early incarnations of the warden's ears.

• Typophobia sculk.jpeg

  January 22, 2022

• The Stalker Version of The Sculk.jpeg

  A version of Sculk that went with the stalker incarnation of the warden.

• The Stalker Sculk With The Stalker Incarnation.jpeg

  The stalker Sculk with the stalker.