Mojang has published Minecraft 26.4 Snapshot 6, the latest test build of the 26.4 update for Java Edition. The headline additions are Snow Bricks as a new building block and the Frozen Sulfur Cube, a variant of the Sulfur Cube block family already seen in earlier snapshots, which turns the water beneath it into Ice as it moves. In their post, the team jokingly noted that "things are getting chilly around here," hinting at the winter theme of this batch of changes.

Snow Bricks as a new building block

Snow Bricks are crafted from a 2x2 grid of Snow Blocks and immediately come with a full set of variants: slab, stairs, and wall. Unlike many other building blocks, they can't be made at the Stonecutter, so each variant has to be crafted separately. Snow Bricks belong to the Fast Sliding archetype within the Sulfur Cube family, which matters for Players using farms and mechanics built around these blocks.

The block only drops when mined with a Shovel, setting it apart from regular Snow and reminding Players to bring the right tool when gathering the resource. For builders, this is another option to spice up winter builds. Alongside the snowy biome Maps and seeds available in our seed database, Snow Bricks give a new texture for building igloos, castles, or mountain settlements.

Frozen Sulfur Cube: a new archetype in the family

The Sulfur Cube archetype family, introduced in previous 26.4 snapshots, has gained the Frozen Sulfur Cube, a creation belonging to a special archetype category. It inherits the properties of the Fast Sliding archetype, but also floats on water and turns it into sheets of Ice in a manner similar to the Frost Walker enchantment. For the Ice to form, there must be Air blocks above the water's surface, and the Sulfur Cube itself must start its movement while standing on solid ground.

The new archetype is created when a regular Sulfur Cube absorbs a block of Blue Ice. This opens up new possibilities for building traps and automatic water-freezing systems, which could interest map and minigame creators on Polish servers who use our crafting recipes section as well as redstone mechanics.

Default Java settings and other fixes

Snapshot 6 changes how the game selects Java's heap memory. Minecraft now automatically sets the heap size based on the amount of RAM in the system, using up to 25% of memory, with a cap of 4 GB. This is a technical change meant to reduce out-of-memory crashes for Players using the official launcher, available in our Java Edition download section.

  • Mobs falling into Lava in certain cases now take slightly less fall damage
  • All variants of Packed Ice bricks now require a pickaxe to drop when mined
  • Brittle Ice no longer breaks when a Stray is standing on it
  • Added ambient sounds for Ice crystals, which have a chance to play when there's Packed Ice beneath the block

Dozens of bug fixes and changes for datapack creators

The fix list in Snapshot 6 covers dozens of reports, including several serious crashes. Fixes include a crash when opening the inventory while spectating a mob in Spectator mode (MC-312270), a crash in the pause menu related to the music toast (MC-312665), and a bug where some village trades still unexpectedly differed from version 1.21.11 (MC-312804). Typos and inconsistencies in interface text about Realms invite codes and the friends list were also fixed.

For datapack creators, the datapack version has increased to 125.1. A new density function, domain_warp, has been added, allowing a function to be sampled with offset coordinates, along with an optional corner_constraint field for structure pool elements that restricts their placement based on density function values at the corners. New tags have also appeared: #swimmable for liquids the Player can swim in, and #swimming and #flying for entity types. The resource pack has been bumped to 101.0, with a new Snow Bricks texture and the ambient Ice crystal sound.

How to test the snapshot

Snapshot 6 is available in the official Minecraft launcher after switching to the snapshot channel in the installations tab, details can be found in our Java Edition download section. This is the sixth test build of the 26.4 update, following Snapshot 5 a week earlier, which introduced Packed Ice bricks. You can follow the full changelog for this and earlier updates in our version overview section. Mojang has not yet given a release date for the full 26.4 update, continuing the weekly snapshot cycle.

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