Chaos Cubed — Minecraft 26.2 Update: everything new in the patch

Minecraft 26.2 update is out now, and there is no better name for it than Chaos Cubed. While it is not a major update, it brought a lot of new things and changes into the game to freshen up your gaming experience. Let’s go through the general information relevant for both Java Edition and Bedrock Edition, and the features specific to the certain edition of the game.

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Sulfur, sulfur a lot of sulfur

The centerpiece of this update — Sulfur Cube. New, neutral mob that can be found deep in the new Sulfur Caves biome. Asides from being new, it breathes life into the old game physics bringing a lot of fun and fresh experience.

So how does it change the game? What makes it so unique? Sulfur Cube can absorb blocks! When that happens(either by player intentionally feeding it a block, or it accidentally moving over a dropped item), the default AI of the mob is disabled. Instead, it becomes a physical object that can be pushed around. In that state, Sulfur Cube takes no damage, nor physical, nor player damage.

Based on the absorbed block, Sulfur Cube changes it’s properties: speed, bounciness, friction and buoyancy. To be more specific, mineral blocks(e.g. stone, dirt, ores etc.) give it a standard properties, organic blocks(e.g. logs, wood, leaves etc.) on the other hand — turn it into high-speed bouncy projectile. There’s another category of blocks that give Sulfur Cube unique properties, hazardous blocks: for instance magma will make Sulfur Cube deal burn damage upon contact, TNT will make it a mobile explosive, that can still be ignited just like any other TNT block!

To remove the block from Sulfur Cube and reset their properties — you can use shears. This also means, that the whole process of absorbing and removing them can be fully automated with redstone and dispensers. Thus used in some farms, mechanisms and such.

As you might’ve noticed earlier, alongside the new mob, a new biome was added — Sulfur Caves. Generated deep underground, vibrant yellow caves. Despite their stunning and interesting look, those can be quite dangerous, as they crawl with cave spiders. Sulfur Spikes are another thing to be cautious about, as they randomly fall from the ceiling dealing severe damage.

The beauty and danger coexisting, though it is not limited to the underground world. Right above those caves, you can find Sulfur Springs in four different sizes. I those springs you can find new functional block — Potent Sulfur.

Potent Sulfur has a few way to that player can use it:

• Gas: by placing Potent Sulfur 1 - 4 blocks under water it will start to generate gasses, walking through which will cause the player to get nauseous.
• Geysers: by placing Potent Sulfur above magma or lava blocks will result in creating a functional geysers. Those geysers will launch any entities in the air upon eruption. Eruptions caused by magma blocks are randomized, while the lava ones are steady and continuous.

On top of all of this, players got a new set of building blocks — Cinnabar and Sulfur blocks, which have a complete builder set(slabs, stairs, polished variations, bricks etc.).

That is the general overview of the new update. However, there is still a few additions that are specific to Java Edition or Bedrock Edition of the games, so let’s take a look at those as well!

Java Edition Specifics

Java Edition of the game has finally received an overhaul of the multiplayer system. Remember the “Open to LAN” feature, that most of the people never used in all of the years of playing the game? Well it has finally got an update and got replaced by Multiplayer Options.

Now, Java Edition has a “Friends List” feature, that is available from the menu. To play together, the owner of the world has to set its scope to “Online”(Local by default) and invite friends from the list. Friends can also request to join the world using the same Friends List feature.

Bedrock Edition Specifics

Compared to the Java Edition, Bedrock got a bit more specific updates, so let’s go over each one of them. Starting with Parties Feature inside Social Drawer, which allows players to form groups up to 14 people, and seamlessly move and navigate between worlds and realms as single unit.

Combat also got a small change in the recent update — arrow damage is no longer random, it is based of the arrow’s velocity. Additionally, arrows fired by the player will no longer scale their damage based on the world difficulty. Although keep in mind that this does not affect mobs, such as skeletons for example.

And the last thing that was added in the recent update to Bedrock Edition was — Environmental changes:

• Texture Streaming is now enabled by default, which improves memory management and overall performance.
• Bees will now follow players if the hold Chorus Flower or a Spore Blossom. Same items can be used to breed bees.
• The End dimension now has a beautiful environmental fog that will stay there until the Ender Dragon is defeated.

Technical additions

This section might be interesting for server admins, modpack / datapack creators, or players who love to temper with commands in the game. In this update 2 new attributes were added to the game to control game’s UI:

minecraft:nameplate_distance
minecraft:below_name_distance

Additionally, signs and hanging signs are now strictly treated as models and textures, making custom texture and resource packs much easier to develop.

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All the small things

Universally for any edition of the game, with each update without fail, Minecraft expands upon its legendary library of soundtrack. This update, features new tracks from composer fingerspit:

• New music disc “Bounce”: can be found exclusively in Mineshaft’s minecart chests that intersect with the new Sulfur Caves biome.
• New ambient tracks: five new background ambient tracks were added to the game: “Shores”, “Memories”, “Nightly”, “Home”, “Ebb”.

Conclusion

That is everything you need to know to be prepared to step into the new Minecraft update 26.2. Thank you for reading this article, we sincerely hope it was of a good use to you and we wish you a good game!