What you need to know
- Minecraft 1.20 "Trails & Tales" is the next major content update coming to Minecraft on all platforms.
- On Friday, Mojang Studios finally revealed the update's release date of June 7, 2023.
- The update will bring new mobs, blocks, mechanics, customization features, crafting recipes, and much more.
- Alongside the update, Minecraft: Bedrock Edition is also officially releasing on Google Chromebooks.
Minecraft didn't become one of the most successful, best-selling games of all time for no reason, and has enjoyed over a decade of healthy life because of a constant stream of support from its creators and its community. On Friday, Minecraft developer Mojang Studios finally revealed exactly when players can expect the official release of the next major Minecraft content update.
The Minecraft 1.20 "Trails & Tales" update officially arrives on June 7, 2023, for both Minecraft: Java Edition and Minecraft: Bedrock Edition players. This is a huge update, so I won't cover it all, but here's a quick overview of some of the most exciting features coming to Minecraft in this release.
- New biome. The Cherry Grove is a gorgeous, rare new biome coming to the Overworld that features lovely cherry trees. These trees bring an all-new, pink wood set to Minecraft that can be used to build, well, everything that wood can be used for in Minecraft. There's also a unique falling cherry blossoms effect that can only be found in Cherry Groves.
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New mobs. Two new mobs are joining the expansive Minecraft ecosystem with the Camel and the Sniffer. Both of these mobs are passive mobs, meaning they pose no threat to players and can actually be quite useful to have around!
- Camels are a unique mount that can seat two players, are tall enough to avoid the angry hands of hostile mobs, can dash long distances instead of jump, and have a ton of unique animations for various actions
- Sniffers are a long-extinct mob that players can bring back to life by finding Sniffer eggs and nursing them to life, and use their powerful noses to sniff out ancient plant seeds that can be grown into two different kinds of rare, decorative plants
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New mechanics. Archeology is finally coming to Minecraft, and will give players new reasons to explore desert biomes in search of new treasure and secrets.
- Players can craft the new brush tool and find suspicious sand to brush away, revealing what's hidden underneath
- With archeology, players can find tons of treasure, including dormant Sniffer eggs and pottery shards that can be combined into unique, decorative clay pots
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New crafting items and blocks. There's a ton of new blocks to discover and items to craft in the next Minecraft update, including:
- Hanging signs, which are more versatile and customizable versions of regular signs
- Chiseled bookshelves, which are fully functional bookshelves that can even tie into redstone contraptions
- A full bamboo wood set, including a unique bamboo raft in place of the boat other wood sets get
- A new piglin mob head, as well as new interactions between mob heads and note blocks to create mob noises on command
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New customization options. Minecraft players will have more options to express themselves, especially in the late game, with these features.
- Armor trims allow players to find rare templates to customize their favorite armor with unique colors and designs, with dozens of possible combinations
- For Bedrock Edition players, shields can now be combined with your favorite banners to don their design
- Countless bug fixes, vanilla parity changes, and quality-of-life improvements. Every Minecraft update contains all of this, but the Trails & Tales update is particularly packed. Mojang Studios has implemented dozens of various bug fixes and optimizations across every platform, as well as improvements to the parity between Java and Bedrock Editions, more accessibility options, and so much more.
You can see many of these new features and improvements in the images below.
Minecraft players aren't just getting a huge update filled with features — we're even getting a new platform on which to play. Minecraft has been in testing on Chromebooks for a while now, but the game is officially releasing on the Google-fied laptops and tablets with the release of the Trails & Tales update. This is the Bedrock Edition, of course, so it features full cross-play and cross-save with all the other Bedrock Edition platforms.
Minecraft is also getting five new songs with this update. If you can't wait to hear them, you can actually find the new Minecraft songs on most streaming services right now.
In case you missed it, a long-running hot topic in the Minecraft community once again made the rounds when ray-tracing files were found in Minecraft: Bedrock Edition. However, it's very likely that these files were already in the game for the Windows PC version and NVIDIA RTX GPUs, so players shouldn't get their hopes up for ray-tracing in Minecraft on Xbox Series X|S.
Minecraft isn't just one of the best Xbox games and best PC games... It's simply one of the greatest games of all time. The 1.20 "Trails & Tales" update isn't the largest or most ambitious update Minecraft has ever seen, but it does include a ton of new features focused on expanding player expression, creativity, and representation, as well as many dozens of under-the-hood changes to improve the overall experience.
Minecraft 1.20 "Trails & Tales" officially releases on June 7, 2023, and it's coming to players on Xbox Series X|S, Xbox One, Windows PC, PS5, PS4, Nintendo Switch, Android, and iOS platforms. Both editions of Minecraft are also available through Xbox and PC Game Pass, giving you even more ways to play.
This update is also releasing the day after Diablo 4 arrives, so Minecraft is officially a Diablo competitor (in addition to Minecraft Dungeons, I mean). You heard it here first.
