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| — The Pretty Scary Update promo poster |
Zombie villagers are a villager-like variant of zombies.
Spawning
A zombie villager farmer with an enchanted iron sword.
Zombie villagers naturally spawn 5% (1% in desert biomes and variants, including husks) in place of all zombies. Additionally, zombie villagers only spawn in groups of 1, instead of 1 to 4 for regular zombies.
Zombie villagers can also result from zombies killing villagers. If any type of zombie kills a villager, there is a chance that the villager will transform into a zombie villager.
| Difficulty | Chance |
|---|---|
| Easy | 0% |
| Normal | 50% |
| Hard and Hardcore | 100% |
A priest zombie villager will appear alongside a priest villager in every igloo basement[Java and Legacy Console editions only]. Zombie Villagers spawn also in zombie villages. Zombie villagers that spawn in zombie villages have the behavior to avoid direct sunlight and will never despawn.
Zombie villagers have their own spawn egg, which can be found inside the creative inventory. This spawn egg spawns a zombie villager when used.
Curing
Zombie villagers can be cured by using a golden apple (regular) on them while they are under the effects of Weakness, which can be applied by:
- A splash potion of Weakness thrown by the player or a witch.
- An area of effect of Weakness from lingering potion of Weakness or creeper explosions with the weakness effect.
- A tipped arrow.
A loud sizzling sound will be heard if successful, and the zombie villager will begin to shudder. The curing process will take 2–5 minutes, during which time the zombie villager behaves as normal. Cured villagers do not retain any trades they had before they became infected.
If the zombie villager is wearing any armor or wielding tools or weapons, those items will disappear when the villager is cured and are not dropped on the ground.
During the curing process, it is often a good idea to keep the zombie villager away from any other zombies, because the other zombies will attack it after it is cured.
Conversion can be sped up by around 4% by surrounding the zombie villager with iron bars and/or bed blocks within a 9×9×9 cube centered on the zombie villager.[1]
A zombie villager cannot be cured by switching from Easy, Normal or Hard difficulty to Peaceful; they will simply despawn like all other monsters.
Variants
Baby zombie villagers
Baby zombie villagers make up 5% of zombie villager spawns. They behave similar to regular zombie villager, with the following oddities:
- They are 30% faster than the normal zombies, yet they have the same health as normal zombies. This makes the baby zombie villagers more dangerous than their bigger counterparts.
- The noises they make are higher-pitched than normal zombie sound effects.
- They can sometimes ride chickens. They can also ride (in the Bedrock Edition):
- Cows
- Ocelots
- Wolves
- Mooshroom
- Adult chickens
- Pigs
- Sheep
- Polar Bears
- Horses
- Donkeys
- Mules
- Zombie horses (unused jockey variant)
- Skeleton Horses
- Llamas
- Adult zombies
- Adult zombie villagers
- Pandas
- Adult husks
- Stray cats
- Spiders
- Cave spiders
- It will use the baby zombie villager's speed, instead of the mob's speed.
- If riding a neutral mob, it will become hostile, but won't anger any mobs nearby that are the same mob as they are.
- If a baby zombie is riding a mob that is also rideable by a player, that mob will no longer be rideable by a player.
- A baby zombie has a 15% chance to become a jockey when try attacking villagers, players or golems.
- Baby zombie villagers will turn into baby villagers, if cured.
- Worn armor shrinks to fit their body size.
- They are able to fit through 1×1 block gaps.
- They drop 12 experience when killed by the player instead of 5.
- Unlike all other baby mobs in the game, they will stay as babies indefinitely and never grow into "adult" zombie villagers.
- They have a decreased hitbox size.
Baby zombie villagers are spawned when a zombie kills a baby villager, the chance of infection being the same as adult zombie villagers. Baby zombie villagers also spawn naturally, but the combined chance (5% villagers × 5% babies) is very low at 0.25% (or 1 in 400 chance) of all newly spawned zombies.
Armed zombie villagers
Along with skeletons and regular zombies, some zombie villagers are capable of picking up dropped items. These zombie villagers will automatically hold any item they come across (except that jack o'lanterns[Java Edition only], mob heads and pumpkins will be worn on their heads), but if those items happen to be armor, weapons or tools, the zombie villager will use them. If they encounter another similar item, they will pick it up and drop their previous item:
- if the new item is armor or a sword and the old item was not (for example, zombie villagers prefer swords to pickaxes and helmets to pumpkins),
- if both items are armor/swords and the new item is better damage-wise (reduces more damage for armor, or inflicts more damage for swords),
- if both items are armor/swords with the same damage reduction/infliction, the new item has NBT tags while the old does not or the new item is more damaged than the old item, or
- if both items are bows and the new item has NBT tags while the old does not.
Items dropped by mobs in exchange for another cannot be picked up by players or mobs for 10 game ticks (0.5 seconds, barring lag), but can be picked up by hoppers.
Armor worn by zombie villagers is not damaged from most damage sources, which means it cannot "wear out" the way player armor does. Helmets (not blocks like pumpkins) on zombie villagers can wear away and break, if the zombie villager is exposed to daylight or has an anvil or other falling block dropped on its head. Zombie villagers also have a natural armor rating of 2 (
), which gives 1.6 - 4% damage reduction from most sources.
Some zombie villagers, which can pick up items spawn already in possession of such items, and those items may also be enchanted. The chances of that event are listed below. If a zombie villager spawns wearing multiple pieces of armor, the armor will never be mismatched (i.e. all pieces will be made of the same material).
| Easy | Normal | Hard | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Can Pick Up Loot | 0% | 0%-55%[note 1] | 6.875%-55%[note 1] |
| Armor | 0% | 0%-15%[note 1] | 1.875%-15%[note 1] |
| Armor Enchantment[note 2] | 0% | 0-50%[note 1] | 6.25%-50%[note 1] |
| Weapon[note 3] | 1% | 1% | 5% |
| Weapon Enchantment[note 2] | 0% | 0%-25%[note 1] | 3.125%-25%[note 1] |
If a zombie does spawn with armor, the chances of specific armor are as follows:
| Armor | Easy & Normal | Hard |
|---|---|---|
| Helmet | 100% | 100% |
| Helmet & Chestplate | 75% | 90% |
| Helmet & Chestplate & Leggings | 56.25% | 81% |
| Full set | 42.19% | 72.9% |
The chances of it being of a particular material are:
| Armor Type | Chance |
|---|---|
| Leather | 37.06% |
| Gold | 48.73% |
| Chain | 12.90% |
| Iron | 1.27% |
| Diamond | 0.04% |
Any zombie villager that spawns with equipment (picked-up items don't count) will drop 1–3 extra experience per item.
Drops
When they die, zombie villagers drop:
- 0–2 Rotten Flesh.
- Iron ingots, carrots and potatoes (0.8% chance each, 1.2% chance with Looting I, 1.5% chance with Looting II and 1.8% chance with Looting III).
- A Zombie Head if it is killed by a charged creeper.
- Any picked-up equipment has 100% chance of dropping and will drop with the same damage level it had when picked up.
Naturally-spawned equipment
- Carved Pumpkin [note 1]
- Jack o'Lantern[Java Edition only][note 1]
- Iron Shovel
- Iron Sword
- Random Armor
- Zombie villagers have an 8.5% chance of dropping their naturally-spawned equipment, and will drop it with a random durability. Each level of Looting will increase the chance 1 percentage point (11.5 % with Looting III).
- ↑ a b Zombie villagers spawn only with pumpkins and jack o'lanterns[Java Edition only] during Halloween.
Experience
Adult zombie villagers will drop 5 experience and an additional 1–3 experience per naturally-spawned equipment. Baby zombie villagers will drop 12 experience.
Halloween
If a zombie villager wearing a carved pumpkin or jack o'lantern[Java Edition only] is killed using a weapon that is enchanted with Looting, there will be a chance equivalent to the level of Looting used to drop the pumpkin or jack o'lantern, up to a maximum of a 3% chance of a drop.
Behavior
They behave as ordinary zombies, but their character model's head and face is reminiscent of that of a villager, shaded with a darker green hue. Zombie villagers retain their professions and clothes, which have a tattered appearance. Upon curing, the villager will not retain the zombie villager's profession.
Data values
Zombie villagers have entity data associated with them that contain various properties of the mob. Their entity ID is zombie_villager.
- Entity data
- Tags common to all entities
- Tags common to all mobs
- Tags common to all villagers
- Tags common to all zombies
- ConversionTime: -1 when not being converted back to a villager, positive for the number of ticks until conversion back into a villager. The regeneration effect parallels this.
- ConversionPlayer: The UUID of the player who started curing the zombie, stored as four ints.
Zombie villager type
Zombie villager profession
Achievements
| Icon | Achievement | In-game description | Actual requirements (if different) | Gamerscore earned | Trophy type (PS4) | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| PS4 | Other | |||||
| Monster Hunter | Attack and destroy a monster. | Kill a hostile mob or one of the following neutral mobs: an enderman, a piglin, a zombified piglin, a spider, or a cave spider. | 15G | Bronze | ||
| Zombie Doctor | Cure a zombie villager. | Throw a splash potion of weakness at a zombie villager and give it a golden apple (by facing the zombie and pressing the use key with a golden apple in your hand) | 40G | Gold | ||
Advancements
| Icon | Advancement | In-game description | Parent | Actual requirements (if different) | Resource location |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
![]() | Zombie Doctor | Weaken and then cure a Zombie Villager | We Need to Go Deeper | Use a golden apple on a zombie villager under the Weakness effect; the advancement is granted when the zombie villager converts into a villager. In multiplayer, only the player that feeds the golden apple gets the advancement. | story/cure_zombie_villager
|
![]() | Adventure | Adventure, exploration and combat | — | Kill any entity, or be killed by any entity. | adventure/root
|
![]() | Monster Hunter | Kill any hostile monster | Adventure | Kill one of these 34 mobs:
| adventure/kill_a_mob
|
![]() | Monsters Hunted | Kill one of every hostile monster | Monster Hunter | Kill each of these 34 mobs:
| adventure/kill_all_mobs
|
Video
Zombie Villager/video
History
| Java Edition | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1.4.2 | 12w32a | ![]() Added zombie villagers. 5% of zombies spawned are zombie villagers, and villagers will now become infected when killed by a zombie. Infecting a baby villager creates a baby zombie villager, which is faster than a normal zombie and does not age.
| |||
| Zombie villagers under the effects of a potion of weakness can be cured by using a golden apple on them. | |||||
| 12w34a | Zombie villagers will now have two new rare drops – carrots and potatoes. | ||||
| 12w34b | Zombie villagers can now pick up and equip dropped items.[2][3] | ||||
| If killed, zombie villagers will now drop the item they are holding. | |||||
| Zombie villagers can now survive in sunlight, if they are wearing a helmet or a pumpkin.[4] | |||||
| ? | On Halloween, zombie villagers can now spawn wearing pumpkins or jack o'lanterns. | ||||
| 1.5 | 13w03a | Zombie villagers are now able to set the player on fire, if they are on fire and they attack the player. | |||
| Zombie villagers can now call other zombies from the nearby area (radius dependent on difficulty) to attack the player, making packs of zombies approach shortly after damaging the zombie villager. | |||||
| Zombie villagers will now cause more damage when their health is lower. | |||||
| 1.6.1 | 13w17a | When damaged, zombie villagers will now have a low chance to spawn more zombies. | |||
| 13w21a | Zombie villager damage increasing with decreasing health has now been removed. | ||||
| 13w23b | Zombie villager AI and mechanics has now been changed – this has now made them much more horde-like. | ||||
| Zombie villagers are now able to detect the player up to 40 blocks. | |||||
| 1.6.2 | pre | Baby zombie villagers will now spawn among regular ones. | |||
| Baby zombie villagers will now have the same percentage of spawning as zombie villagers. | |||||
| 1.7.2 | 13w36a | Baby zombie villagers will now drop loot and experience. | |||
| 1.7.4 | 13w49a | Added zombie villager chicken jockeys – a rare version of the baby zombie villager. | |||
| 1.8 | 14w11a | Zombie villagers will now run away from creepers that are about to explode. | |||
| 14w30a | Zombie villagers will now drop a zombie head when killed by a charged creeper. | ||||
| 1.8.1 | pre1 | Zombie villagers will now no longer run away from creepers that are about to explode. | |||
| 1.9 | 15w32a | The detection range of zombie villagers is now halved when the player is wearing a zombie mob head. | |||
| 15w33c | The zombie villager's detection range for players wearing the zombie head has now been adjusted, now 37.5% of the normal range. | ||||
| 15w34a | Zombie villagers will now have an attack animation similar to the one they had in Classic 0.24 - 0.30, even without weapons. | ||||
| 15w35a | ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() Zombie villagers will now retain their professions and clothes, which have a tattered appearance. Before this version, the zombie villager's body texture shared the same texture as the regular zombie's body.
| ||||
A new VillagerProfession tag that determines what profession the zombie villager is, as well as what profession it will be when cured, has now been added. | |||||
| 15w36a | The zombie villager's detection range for players wearing the zombie head is now again 50% of the normal range. | ||||
| 15w43a | A zombie villager priest can now be found caged in an igloo basement. | ||||
| 1.10 | 16w20a | "Generic" green-robed zombie villager has now been removed, due to the new ZombieType tag not allowing invalid villager professions. | |||
| pre1 | Chance of a zombie villager setting the target on fire when burning, and the duration of the effect, will now depend on raw regional difficulty. | ||||
| 1.11 | 16w32a | Added a zombie villager spawn egg. | |||
Entity ID Zombie is now zombie, zombie_villager and husk for those respective mobs. | |||||
Removed the ZombieType tag, added the Profession tag to zombie_villager only, and made ConversionTime apply to zombie_villager only. | |||||
Setting the Profession tag to 5 will now make green-robed villagers. | |||||
| The zombie villager's in-game name is now "Zombie Villager" instead of "Zombie". | |||||
| Zombie villagers will now no longer drop zombie heads when killed by a charged creeper. | |||||
| Zombie villagers will now no longer spawn from zombie spawners. | |||||
| 16w32b | Re-added generic zombie villagers, along with its normal counterpart. | ||||
| 16w39a | Zombie villagers will now have their own sounds. | ||||
| 1.12 | 17w14a | Added ConversionPlayerLeast and ConversionPlayerMost tags to the zombie villager, for the purpose of the minecraft:cured_zombie_villager trigger for advancements. | |||
| 1.13 | 18w07a | Zombie villagers will now intentionally stomp on turtle eggs and attack turtles. | |||
| 18w10d | Baby zombie villagers will now burn in the sun. | ||||
| Pocket Edition Alpha | |||||
| 0.12.1 | build 1 | Added zombie villagers. | |||
| Zombie villagers will retain their professions and clothes, which have a tattered appearance. | |||||
| 0.14.0 | build 1 | Baby zombie villagers will now have a 15% chance of becoming be a jockey. Before becoming a jockey, upon nearing the player, they will check for one of the following to mount prior attacking: adult chickens, adult ocelots, adult wolves, adult zombies, adult zombie villager, adult zombie pigmen, cows, pigs, sheep, cave spiders or spiders. | |||
| 0.15.0 | build 1 | Baby zombie villagers can now mount adult husks and horse variants. | |||
| Pocket Edition | |||||
| 1.0 | alpha 0.17.0.1 | Baby zombie villagers can now mount polar bears. | |||
| 1.1 | alpha 1.1.0.0 | Baby zombie villagers can now mount llamas. | |||
| alpha 1.1.0.9 | Zombie villagers will now have their own sounds. | ||||
| Bedrock Edition | |||||
| ? | Baby zombie villagers can now no longer mount adult zombie pigmen. | ||||
| 1.4 | beta 1.2.20.1 | Baby zombie villagers will now burn in daylight. | |||
| 1.5 | beta 1.5.0.0 | Zombie villagers will now sink underwater. | |||
| beta 1.5.0.4 | Zombie villagers will now attack baby turtles and stomp on turtle eggs. | ||||
| Upcoming Bedrock Edition | |||||
| 1.8 | beta 1.8.0.8 | Baby zombie villagers can now mount pandas and stray cats. | |||
| Legacy Console Edition | |||||
| TU14 | CU1 | 1.04 | Added zombie villagers. | ||
| Added baby zombie villagers. However, they can only be obtained by having a zombie kill a baby villager, as a zombie spawn egg will not spawn them, due to baby zombies not being in game. | |||||
| TU15 | 1.05 | The zombie villagers' rare loot drop have now been changed to be carrots, potatoes or iron ingots. | |||
| TU19 | CU7 | 1.12 | Zombie villagers can now pick up items and occasionally spawn with armor and/or weapons. | ||
| Baby zombie villagers can now be spawned with a zombie spawn egg. | |||||
| TU31 | CU19 | 1.22 | Patch 3 | Baby zombie villagers will now drop experience. | |
| Zombie villagers will now drop a zombie head when killed by a charged creeper. | |||||
| TU54 | CU45 | 1.56 | Patch 24 | Zombie Villagers will now no longer spawn from zombie spawn eggs or spawners, since they now have their own spawn egg. | |
| TU60 | CU51 | 1.64 | Patch 30 | Baby zombie villagers will now have a 15% chance of becoming a jockey. Before becoming a jockey, upon nearing the player, they will check for one of the following to mount prior attacking: adult chickens, adult ocelots, adult wolves, adult zombies, cows, pigs, sheep, spiders or cave spiders. | |
| TU69 | Patch 38 | Zombie villagers will now have their own sounds. | |||
Issues
Issues relating to "Zombie Villager" are maintained on the bug tracker. Report issues there.
Gallery
The zombie villager textures added in 15w35a.
A zombie villager wearing a wither skeleton skull.
Notes














