Minecraft's latest update, the 1.16 "Nether Update," has arrived and with it comes a bevy of additions such as new locations and ores. It's a huge update and the patch notes are extensive, so there's a lot to dig into.
First up is the inclusion of new crafting materials. The Nether Update introduces Ancient Debris, a "fancy new ore" that can be mined in the lower depths of the Nether. Once gathered, you can refine the material to create netherite scrap which, when combined with gold ingots, can be turned into netherite ingots. The new patch also adds new wood materials, soul soil (which burns a blue flame), additional blocks, and more.
The Nether Update also opens up three new biomes for exploration: the Crimson Forest, Soulsand Valley, and the Warped Forest. Netherite can be found in each biome, fungi are the "trees" of these locations, and a new kind of vegetation spans the cave's floors. Despite the Nether's general hostility, the Warped Forest is supposedly the "least hostile place" of the molten lava hellscape.
Minecraft's "Nether Update" is quite long and is packed with a myriad of additions and changes, bug fixes and adjustments, and much more. Check out the full patch notes below. If you want to check out the new snapshot, make sure you have them enabled in the "Installations" tab of the Minecraft launcher.
Minecraft "Nether Update" 1.16 Patch Notes
Features
- Added new Nether blocks!
- Knockback resistance is now a scale instead of a probability
- Added Crimson Forest biome to the Nether
- Added Hoglins – they don’t do much yet, but they have cute flappy ears!
- Patrols no longer spawn when the player is close to any village
- Added Netherite!
- Added Soulsand Valley biome to the Nether
- Walls do not have gaps anymore when stacked vertically
- Added Warped Forest biome to the Nether
Blocks
- Two new wood-like materials – Crimson Stems and Warped Stems
- Basalt blocks – you can find them as pillars but they can be placed in any direction
- New ground surface blocks: Crimson Nylium and Warped Nylium
- New vegetation: Nether Sprouts, Crimson Roots and Warped Roots
- Two types of Fungi: Crimson and Warped – try using bone meal to grow them!
- Warped Wart blocks
- Weeping Vines that grow from the bottom of a block downwards!
- A new natural light source: Shroomlights
- Added Soul Soil! Whenever fire burns on Soul Soil, it burns with a blue flame!
- Soul Soil can be used to craft Soul Torches – and those can be crafted into Soul Lanterns!
- Using bone meal on Netherrack can now spread Nylium
Crimson Forest
- Crimson nylium carpets the cave floor with all kinds of strange new vegetation
- Huge Crimson Fungi make up the “trees” of this forest, with Shroomlights lighting up the forest floor
- Weeping Vines grow from the cave ceilings and fungi
- Hoglins wander these forests
- Crimson spores swirl through the air
Netherite
- A new high-level material found in the Nether. Use it to upgrade your diamond gear!
How to make Netherite
- Mine Ancient Debris in the lower depths of the Nether. At own risk. No insurance coverage for that
- Refine it into Netherite Scrap in a Furnace (although that’s kind of slow so you might want a Blast Furnace)
- Combine 4 Nether Scrap with 4 Gold Ingots in a crafting table to make a Netherite Ingot
Netherite Effects
- Netherite items float in lava so you don’t lose all your gear after that unplanned lava bath
- Netherite items have higher enchantment value than diamond (but not as high as gold)
- Netherite tools work faster and last longer than diamond
- Netherite weapons do more damage than diamond
- Netherite armor have higher toughness and durability than diamond
- Netherite armor gives you knockback resistance, so you barely get knocked back at all when hit by arrows and such
- ...and it looks cool!
Soulsand Valley
Soulsand Valleys can now be found in the Nether!
- An open space made mostly of Soul Sand and Soul Soil
- Basalt pillars span from floor to ceiling
- Fossil remains of unknown creatures from the past litter the valley
- Ash falls through the air
- A light blue glow envelopes the valley
- Beware of Skeletons here!
Sounds
- Ghasts sounds are now heard at a shorter range
- Updated block sounds for Bone Blocks, Netherrack, Soul Sand, Netherwart, Nether Bricks and Quartz Ore
Warped Forest
Warped Forests can now be found in the Nether!
- Warped nylium carpets the cave floor with all kinds of strange new vegetation
- Huge Warped Fungi make up the “trees” of this forest, with Shroomlights lighting up the forest floor
- A dark blue fog covers the forest
- Warped spores swirl through the air
- The Warped Forests are strange, but also the least hostile place of Nether
World Generation
- The old Nether biome is now called Nether Wastes
- Made shipwrecks and ocean ruins a bit less common, so you get more excited when you find one!
Technical Changes
- Added a "locatebiome" command
Commands
Locatebiome
- New command that locates a specified biome. Useful in creative mode when you’re
- looking for a specific biome and don’t want to fly around randomly searching for it.
- Syntax: locatebiome <biome>
- Parameters:
- biome - The id of the biome to find
- Parameters:
Particles
- New particle types: ash, crimson_spore, soul_fire_flame and warped_spore
Rendering
- Nailed Entity shadows to the ground.
Fixed Bugs
- MC-17431: Shift-clicking stacked items with a data tag into the enchanting table GUI removes data tags from the moved item
- MC-45619: Water, Signs, Vines, Torches etc. in the same block as item frame break item frame’s redstone signal
- MC-52178: Cape doesn’t move down while sneaking / Cape detaches from body while sneaking
- MC-59363: Items in item frames are deleted if both mouse buttons are used simultaneously
- MC-82235: Baby pigs turn into adult zombie pigmen when struck by lightning
- MC-92889: Mending doesn’t always consume experience if the player wears items with mending that are already fully repaired
- MC-93198: Throwing potions / throwable projectiles causes both hands to bob up and down
- MC-93631: Pistons pop off blocks attached to their back when retracting
- MC-96436: Eggs/snowballs/xp-bottles break instantly when thrown while riding a horse
- MC-97958: Small slime has no jump or squish sound
- MC-103655: Cats don’t stand up when using right click on them while they’re sitting on chests or beds
- MC-109370: Bottom face of column blocks are rotated 180 degrees
- MC-109844: en_us.json contains unused strings
- MC-109850: Redstone wire doesn’t have a bottom texture
- MC-112630: Carrot on a stick cannot be broken
- MC-113381: Falling dust particles of anvil and concrete powder blocks are black
- MC-120335: Flower pot bottom texture is not rendered because of incorrect “uv” values in the model file
- MC-131440: The message for trying to sleep at the wrong time implies that you can only sleep at night during a thunderstorm
- MC-131770: Rain particles appear one block below the water or lava surface
- MC-132607: Splitting slimes and magma cubes do not copy NoAI value
- MC-134162: Item entities can break turtle eggs
- MC-136868: Ignited TNT, arrow or trident turns black when it falls on soul sand or snow layers
- MC-138600: Cats don’t bring gifts if they have already decided to sit on your bed
- MC-140544: Pickaxes don’t speed up piston breaking
- MC-148474: Sloped powered detector rails break when pushed or pulled by a piston
- MC-149052: Stonecutter recipe list doesn’t show item tooltips
- MC-149776: Cartography Table requires string for the recipe to show up in the recipe book
- MC-150020: Composter is in the “Miscellaneous” category instead of “Decoration” like the other workstation blocks
- MC-154867: Tamed cats remain sitting if the world is reloaded while the cat is sitting on a chest
- MC-158807: You can remove cursed enchantments on items by repairing them in inventory
- MC-159300: Villagers that have been infected by a zombie can despawn, even if they have been traded with
- MC-159773: Shulkers can teleport to non-solid faces, and don’t teleport to some solid faces
- MC-159918: Foxes don’t run from polar bears
- MC-159963: Minecarts can break turtle eggs
- MC-160897: Dropping an item using the drop key displays the hand animation but dropping items from within the inventory does not
- MC-160902: Arm swings when right-clicking on full minecart
- MC-161156: Silverfish and endermites appear black on soul sand
- MC-161259: Using the carrot on a stick while riding a pig plays no hand animation
- MC-162881: Composter doesn’t display particles when being fed composting items through a hopper
- MC-163286: /setblock ~ ~ ~ air destroy does not destroy liquids
- MC-164184: Breaking a shulker box with contents in Creative mode drops the block at an incorrect location
- MC-164948: Entity shadow renders through transparent blocks
- MC-167077: Foxes sleep on top of honey blocks, even in broad daylight
- MC-167512: Glass in the hand is rendered differently depending on the “Clouds” setting
- MC-167989: Spawn point is not set when monsters are nearby
- MC-168540: Threads created by net.minecraft.Util.backgroundExecutor() have misleading names
- MC-168772: Experience orbs can crush turtle eggs
- MC-169679: Composters do not make sounds when fed by hoppers
- MC-169692: Entity shadow floats slightly above the ground
- MC-169832: Transparent item models have inconsistent rendering when a glowing entity is present
- MC-170128: Cannot build an EntityType without a datafixer due to an IllegalArgumentException
