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Minecraft 26.4 is shaping up to bring a chilly new place to explore: Ice Caves, an underground biome planned for cold Overworld regions. The Game Drop is still in development, so details may change before release.

The caves are described as featuring glowing ice crystals, calcite, icicles that can fall, and brittle ice that breaks underfoot. They’ll also be home to Strays and the Frostbite, a zombie variant that can throw ice balls from a distance. Its attacks build up a freezing effect, while leather armor helps protect you. Ice balls also have uses as projectiles and in freezing-effect potions and arrows.

Builders get new ice, snow, and calcite block variants. There’s also a new Flurry music disc, plus a jukebox playlist feature that uses discs stored in a chest above it. Java Edition is getting a refreshed friends list and player-management screen, too.

The changes are appearing in Java snapshots and Bedrock previews. Mojang has not announced a final release date yet.

Java 26.4 Snapshot 7 is here, bringing fresh blocks for your builds and a new tune to hunt down. Mojang says these are the final gameplay features planned for the upcoming game drop.

Calcite now has pillar, slab, stair, and wall variants, plus polished calcite and polished calcite bricks. You can craft the new shapes with a stonecutter, making them handy for detailed base projects. The new “Flurry” music disc by Hyper Potions can turn up in igloo basement chests, and gives a comparator output of 7 in a jukebox.

There are useful changes beyond building, too. Gameplay screens like crafting tables now support keyboard navigation and narration, though the Creative Inventory and Recipe Book aren’t supported yet. On the survival side, fire now counters freezing, and leather armor stops zombies and skeletons from converting into frostbites or strays. Strays also spawn in several more cold biomes.

The snapshot includes other UI and technical changes, plus a long list of bug fixes.