Java Edition 1.21.6

Minecraft 1.21.6

Edition	Java Edition
Official name	Summer Drop 2025
Planned release date	June 2025
Development versions	Snapshots (2) (View all)
◄◄  1.21 1.21.6 ◄  1.21.5

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            "field": "''(link to Java Edition article, displayed as Java Edition)''",
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1.21.6, the release of the Summer Drop 2025, is an upcoming version of Java Edition that is set to release in June 2025.

Additions

1.21.6 block and item additions

Blocks

Dried Ghast

• Found in Nether fossils in soul sand valleys.
• Can be crafted with 1 bone block and 8 ghast tears.

Ingredients	[hide]Crafting recipe
Ghast Tear + Bone Block

• Can be mined instantly without using a tool.
• When waterlogged, it undergoes 3 states over about 20 minutes until it spawns a ghastling mob.
• Makes sounds and shows particles depending on state.
• If mined during the waterlogging, it will revert to its "dry" state regardless of what state it has reached during waterlogging.
  • Will revert states back to its initial "dry" state when it is taken away from being waterlogged, using the same time scale.
• Can be moved by pistons.

Items

Happy Ghast Spawn Egg

• Used to spawn a happy ghast.

Harness

• Crafted out of 3 leather, 2 glass and 1 wool, the harness will have the same color as the wool used when crafting.

Ingredients	[hide]Crafting recipe
Leather + Glass + Matching Wool

• Used to fly on happy ghasts.
  • Can only be equipped on a happy ghast.
  • Allows up to 4 players to mount the happy ghast.
• Have 16 variants, matching the color of wool used to craft the harness.
  • Can be re-dyed.

Ingredients	[hide]Crafting recipe
Any Harness + Matching Dye

• Can be removed from the happy ghast using shears, but only when no players are mounted.

Mobs

Ghastling

• Spawned after a dried ghast gets hydrated in water.
  • Can also be summoned using the command: /summon happy_ghast ~ ~ ~ {Age:-24000}.
• Has 20HP × 10 health points.
• Will grow up into a Happy Ghast after about 20 minutes (or faster if fed Snowballs).
  • Can be tempted and fed using snowballs to speed up their growth.
• After spawning, a ghastling will try and follow:
  • Players within a 16-block radius.
  • Or an adult, non-aquatic passive mob (and some neutral mobs) within a 16-block radius.
• If no player or suitable mob is close around the ghastling will idle around within 32 blocks from its home position (where it spawned or last was interacted with).
  • It will reset its home position if it is moved more than 16 blocks away from the border of its home area.

Happy Ghast

• Spawned after a ghastling gets fed enough snowballs.
• Has 20HP × 10 health points.
• A rideable entity, which can be equipped with a harness and ridden by up to four players.
  • When a player mounts, the goggles on the happy ghast go down to cover its eyes, indicating that it now can be controlled.
  • Players mounted after the first player piloting the happy ghast are placed in slots on each side of it, starting clockwise from the first player.
  • Pressing crouch button dismounts the player on top.
  • 3rd person camera is moved back when player is mounted.
  • If players dismount midair, the happy ghast will descend towards the ground before it resumes roaming.
• The first player that mounts the Happy Ghast will control it, sitting in front of the Happy Ghast, just above its face.
  • Pressing the forward key will make the Happy Ghast fly in the direction the player is looking.
  • Pressing the back key will make the Happy Ghast fly in the opposite direction the player is looking.
  • Pressing the left and right keys will strafe the Happy Ghast in the respective direction.
  • Pressing the jump key will make the Happy Ghast fly directly up.
• Can be stood on, similar to a shulker.
  • If the happy ghast detects players on top of it, it then ceases all movement and aligns to the closest cardinal horizontal direction.
    • This happens regardless of it having a harness equipped or not.
• When not being ridden, can be tempted by players holding snowballs and harness.
  • However, they can not be bred.
  • Harness tempting only works if the Happy Ghast is unharnessed.
• Has no panic behavior when taking damage.
• Slowly regenerates health, with regeneration speeding up during rain, snow or when flying at the same height as clouds are rendered.
• Can be burned by fire and lava, as opposed to regular ghasts.
• Cannot enter boats, but can enter minecarts.
• When there are no players mounted or walking on the happy ghast, the goggles go up and the happy ghast starts to roam around the home position.
• Idles around within 64 blocks from its home position in the similar way as the ghastling.
  • If wearing a harness, the happy ghast idles closer to the home position (within 32 blocks).
  • The Happy Ghast will try to stay close to blocks when roaming on its own.
• Does not drop anything other than experience.

Command format

/version

• No arguments.
• Prints current version information on server side.
• Available in singleplayer or for server operators.

Gameplay

Advancements

• Added 2 new advancements:
  • Stay Hydrated!
    • Place a Dried Ghast block into water
  • Heart Transplanter
    • Place a Creaking Heart with the correct alignment between two Pale Oak Log blocks

General

Attributes

• Added camera_distance
  • Default value: 4.0
  • Modifies the distance at which the camera is placed away from the player or spectated entity when in a third-person view.
  • If the entity being ridden has a larger camera_distance attribute, that distance will be used.
  • This distance is multiplied by the scale attribute to get a final target camera distance.

Controls

• Added F3 + V.
  • Prints client-side version information.

Tags

• Added the #triggers_ambient_desert_dry_vegetation_block_sounds block tag.
  • Contains blocks that can trigger ambient desert dry vegetation sounds to play from blocks above.
• Added the #happy_ghast_food item tag.
  • Contains items that can be used to feed happy ghasts.
• Added the #happy_ghast_tempt_items item tag.
  • Contains items that can be used to tempt happy ghasts.
• Added the #can_equip_harness entity tag.
  • Contains entities that can equip the harness items
• Added #followable_friendly_mobs entity tag.
  • Contains non-baby entities that will be followed by ghastlings.

Changes

Blocks

Firefly bushes

• Now produce larger, and more constant, amounts of particles.

Items

Spawn Eggs

• Blaze and breeze egg size changed from "large" to "medium".

Mobs

Ghast

• Updated its texture to be higher resolution, matching the new happy ghast.

Wolves, Sheeps and Pigs

• Now have their legs mirrored.

Command format

/datapack

• Added /datapack create
  • Creates new empty directory data pack for current world.
  • Supported pack version is always equal to one supported by game.
  • Available only to server owners.
  • Syntax: /datapack create <id> <name>
    • id - new pack name, must be a valid directory name.
    • name - text component to be placed in description in pack.mcmeta.

Gameplay

Sounds

• Rules for when ambient desert blocks sounds play have been tweaked.
  • Ambient sand sounds no longer require sky access to play.
  • Ambient sand sounds now have a slightly decreased chance to play.
  • Terracotta blocks no longer trigger ambient sand sounds.
  • Sand blocks no longer trigger ambient wind sounds.
  • Terracotta blocks no longer trigger ambient wind sounds.
  • Short Dry Grass and Tall Dry Grass can now trigger ambient wind sounds when above 2 Sand, Red Sand or Terracotta blocks.
  • Dead Bush ambient sounds now have a slightly increased chance of playing.

Spectator mode

• Spectators will now teleport together with, but stop spectating, entities that move to other dimensions.

General

Data component format

• attribute_modifiers
  • Added optional display field to attributes_modifiers entries.
    • There are 3 display types:
      • default - Current behavior of showing the calculated attribute modifier values on the tooltip.
      • hidden - Does not show the attribute modifier entry.
      • override - Replaces the shown attribute modifier text.
        • Contains a single field value for the text contents to show for this attribute modifer entry.

Data pack

• The pack format version is now 72.
• Dimension Type definitions have a new optional field, cloud_height that indicates what Y-level the clouds start in the dimension.

Entity data

• area_effect_cloud
  • The Particle field has been renamed to custom_particle, and now always functions as an exact override for the default colored entity_effect particle.
    • The field will not be written if no override is specified
    • The color will no longer be inherited from the potion contents when specifying the entity_effect or tinted_leaves particle types

Equipment Assets

• Added new happy_ghast_body layer type, rendering in the body slot of the happy ghast.

Resource pack

• The pack format version is now 56
• The game will now consistently respect blur texture parameter in .png.mcmeta files.

Sounds

• Changed location on the sounds for glow squid, squid, guardian, horse, rabbit and pufferfish from the entity folder to the mob folder.

Sound events

• block.sand.wind has been renamed to block.dry_grass.ambient.

Tags

• The #plays_ambient_desert_block_sounds block tag has been renamed to #triggers_ambient_desert_sand_block_sounds.

Third-person view

• Increased the third-person camera distance when spectating or riding Ghasts, Ender Dragons, and Giants.

Experimental

Additions

Command format

/waypoint

• A new command for querying and modifying waypoints.
• Syntax:
  • /waypoint list
  • /waypoint modify <entity-selector> color <color>
  • /waypoint modify <entity-selector> color hex <hex-color>
  • /waypoint modify <entity-selector> color reset
  • /waypoint modify <entity-selector> fade <fade_start> <alpha_start> <fade_end> <alpha_end>
  • /waypoint modify <entity-selector> fade reset
• Parameters:
  • entity-selector: For selecting entities that are transmitting as waypoints (see waypoint_transmit_range attribute).
  • color: Overrides the locator bar icon color for this waypoint.
  • hex <hex-color> arguments are in web format (RRGGBB).
    • Red is either hex F00 or hex FF0000.
    • Cornflower blue is hex 6495ED.
  • fade: Set the fade out effect for waypoints.
    • The arguments <fade_start> <alpha_start> <fade_end> <alpha_end> handle the starting/ending fade distance & alpha opacity.
      • *_start is the nearby values (closest to the player).
      • *_end is the far values (furthest from the player).
    • reset will restore the default behavior of distant locator bar icons fading out to 0.2 alpha.

Gameplay

Player locator bar

• A UI element on the player HUD that displays the direction of other players in the world.
• By default, all players transmit a waypoint from themselves, and all players receive all waypoints; allowing players to locate other players in multiplayer.
• The locator bar will display colored indicators when the camera is facing within 120 degrees towards a waypoint. If a waypoint is above/below the camera's viewport (the screen) an up/down arrow will display.
• Any waypoint that is determined to be a player or mob that belongs to a Team then the color indicator will match the team color.
• Can be toggled with gamerule useLocatorBar.
• Crouching will hide the player, preventing them from appearing on the Locator Bar of other players.
• Spectators are only visible to other spectators on the Locator Bar.

General

Attribute

• Added waypoint_transmit_range and waypoint_receive_range.
  • Default: 0.0, Minimum: 0.0, Maximum: 60000000.0.
  • Players have a default transmission and receive range of 60,000,000.
  • Mobs with a transmission range above zero will send waypoint packets to nearby receivers.
  • Similarly, receivers only receive with a range above zero, and cannot receive waypoints outside of this range.

Game rule

• Added the useLocatorBar game rule.
  • Is enabled by default for servers running the Locator Bar experiment.
  • Disabling the game rule will remove all existing waypoints from all players.

Changes

Blocks

Carved Pumpkin and Heads

• Will hide players from the locator bar when worn in the head slot.

Items

Potion of Invisibility

• Will hide players from the locator bar.

Fixes

20 issues fixed

From released versions before 1.21

• MC-147260 – Map icons are not displayed in the cartography table.
• MC-191306 – Sounds played using /playsound are played in all dimensions.
• MC-266318 – Trapdoors and doors have inconsistent subtitles for being opened and closed.

From 1.21.1

• MC-276264 – Advancement screen shadow renders below item icons.

From 1.21.2

• MC-275374 – Drowneds with CanBreakDoors:1b don't break doors.
• MC-277992 – 1 color in the pale chest boat item is incorrect.
• MC-278466 – Bundle experiment data pack related strings are not in deprecated.json.

From 1.21.4

• MC-278873 – The data fixer regenerates chunks containing items obtained from flower pots using Ctrl + Pick Block before version 1.13, or it crashes the game if the item is in the player's inventory.

From 1.21.5

• MC-280047 – Temperate cows use their 1.14 texture with the Programmer Art resource pack enabled.
• MC-280266 – Firefly bushes don't produce as many, or as constant, amounts of particles as on Bedrock Edition.
• MC-280268 – Blazes and breezes use "large" spawn eggs despite mobs of a similar size using "medium".
• MC-280471 – The Particle.color field in area effect clouds is read-only.
• MC-293619 – The chicken spawn egg texture in Programmer Art is missing pixels that match the inventory slot background color.
• MC-295681 – Leaf litter can generate inside of woodland mansions.
• MC-295850 – Done and Cancel buttons on the world creation Edit Game Rules screen do the same thing.
• MC-295866 – The /setblock and /fill commands no longer update redstone power in some situations.
• MC-295867 – Structures from previous versions fail with DataFixerUpper.
• MC-296035 – Two pixels from "mooshroom_spawn_egg" are the same as "cow_spawn_egg".
• MC-296624 – Old Brown Mooshroom texture is missing from Programmer Art.
• MC-297537 – Extra "entity.wolf_whine.whine" sound event exists in sounds.json.