There really is no better time to play Minecraft on mobile and join millions of others in exploring a fantasy world, and building… well, whatever you want! In this Minecraft update guide, we give you the lowdown on each Minecraft update coming to the game, along with details of what they change, and how to get involved for yourself if you like what you see.
Wanna get further into the block-based world of Minecraft? Check out our list of the best Minecraft skins, and some cool Minecraft house designs. Take the game on the go with you by trying a new platform with a fresh Minecraft download.
Time to grab your pickaxe and dig into the latest Minecraft update.
When is the next Minecraft update?
Update 1.21.50, The Garden Awakens, is now out. Now we wait until the next big update gets announced for more biomes, animals, and blocks to look forward to.
Before that, though, we've got some smaller updates in the game. We now have different variants of cows in the game!
Content in the latest Minecraft update
Experimental features
- Short Grass now generates slightly sparser in Meadows
- Bush
- The Bush is a new type of decorative block that can be found in small patches in the following biomes: Plains, Windswept Hills, Windswept Gravelly Hills, Windswept Forest, River, Forest, Birch Forest, Old Growth Birch Forest
- The Bush can be used in the Composter
- Using Bone Meal on a Bush places a neighbouring Bush next to the Bush if possible
- Firefly Bush
- Spawns Firefly particles that fly around it when the player is near
- Illuminates the area around it
- Using Bone Meal on a Firefly Bush drops a Firefly Bush block
- Firefly Bushes are found naturally in clumps next to water in the Overworld
- In Swamp biomes they can be found anywhere and are twice as likely to be found next to water
- Cow Variants
- Added two new Cow variants – Warm Cow and Cold Cow!
- These have their own own unique texture and geometry, but not a separate spawn egg
- They spawn in the same biomes as the Warm, Cold, and Temperate Pigs
- Leaf Litter
- Leaf Litter is a new type of decorative block which can be found in the Forests, Dark Forests and Wooded Badlands
- Leaf Litter can have different amounts of leaves in one block space
- Up to four Leaf Litter pieces can be placed in the same block space
- Placing a Leaf Litter into an already placed Leaf Litter block increases the amount of leaves
- Leaf Litter can be placed in four orientations
- Leaf Litter can be created by smelting any type of Leaves block
- Leaf Litter can be used as fuel for smelting
- Leaf Litter has unique block sounds
- Wildflowers
- Wildflowers are a new type of flower which grow in Birch Forests, Old Growth Birch Forests and Meadows
- Using Bone Meal on Grass Blocks in these biomes can grow Wildflowers
- Wildflowers can have different amounts of flowers in one block space
- Up to four Wildflowers can be placed in the same block space
- Placing Wildflowers into an already placed Wildflowers block increases the amount of flowers
- Using Bone Meal on Wildflowers will produce more Wildflowers
- Wildflowers can be placed in four orientations
- Wildflowers can be crafted into Yellow Dye
- New Ambient Sounds for Desert and Badlands
- Sand, Red Sand and Terracotta of any color have a chance of playing ambient sounds when surrounded by any one of them on at least 3 sides 8 blocks away
Features and Bug Fixes
- Placing a block in liquid, and then placing another block next to your first block in liquid will no longer replace your second placed block for a moment causing you to fall into the liquid
- Structure Blocks no longer briefly change textures when placed (MCPE-185531)
- Sea Pickles can now be placed on any block with center support (MCPE-116152)
- Barrier blocks will no longer prevent chunks rendering behind them (MCPE-153515)
Gameplay
- Fixed a mismatch between server and client when continuously building that caused orientation sensitive blocks to sometimes change to the wrong block
- Fixed a crash that would occur on Xbox if you pressed "Cancel" in the Xbox UI when converting a world or importing a world from Retail to Preview
- In Server Authoritative movement, when Players receive a movement correction it will use the current Player speed instead of a generic one, this should give a better experience.
- In Server Authoritative movement, when Players receive a downward movement correction it will now use gravity acceleration, this should give a better experience
- Foxes now take damage from lava, and not only fire (MCPE-56926)
- Fix Random Tick Speed and Respawn Radius settings resetting to default values (REALMS-11759)
- Fix "Reset Random Tick Speed" button not working when editing an existing world on Realms
- Bundle tooltip no longer flickers for players beyond the first when playing in split screen
- Replacing items with the lock_in_inventory component with items from the creative inventory using touch input now fails gracefully and produces a warning message.
- Align rideable entity inventory transparent background with other screens
- Fixed problem with moving items from creative inventory to player inventory on pocket ui. (MCPE-185361)
- Beacon rendering is no longer limited by the player's vertical distance from it (MCPE-25228)
- Fixed an issue where Dark Forests were missing trees along their northern borders with other biomes
- Updated the tree composition in Dark Forests to match Java Edition, increasing the number of Dark Oak Trees and reducing the prevalence of other tree types
- Donkeys now spawn in Savanna
- Donkeys now spawn in Plains in groups of 1-3 instead of 2-6
- Fixed issue where No more entities assert failure occurred when flying through biomes during a storm
- Added support for entity sound variants
- Entity sounds now have a "variants" field which defines sound variants based on the runtime entity
- Variants has a "key" field reading a Molang expression returning a string to select sound variant (eg: querying an enum entity property).
- Variants has a "map" field which contains key-value pairs of a variant identifier and the sound events it overrides.
- Resolve crash when changing point light shadow settings under Deferred Graphical Settings
If you want to play Minecraft on mobile, you can also download it on Google Play and the App Store. We also have a guide for how to play Minecraft: Pocket Edition on PC, and a guide for Minecraft Earth updates, just in case you fancy playing one of the best location based games on mobile.