Minecraft Preview 1.21.0.20 patch notes: Ominous trials, Hardcore mode, updated player Profile page, and more

Last week, Mojang announced the last feature to be included in the Minecraft 1.21 update: ominous trials. This new addition introduced a plethora of challenges, including ominous trial spawners, new effects for mobs, and other elements. Regrettably, these features were only implemented in the Java Edition, and not in Bedrock.

However, to prevent any additional confusion, developers have verified that the new ominous trials will be arriving on Bedrock Edition in the near future. Thankfully, players won’t have to wait much longer to experience the ominous trials and all of their associated features, as they will be included in this week’s Minecraft Preview 1.21.0.20.

The most recent update for Minecraft, Preview 1.21.0.20, brings in intimidating trials as well as other ominous elements such as vaults, spawners, trial keys, and more. Along with these additions, the update also addresses any lingering bugs and gives profiles a fresh new look. Let’s take a closer look at the patch notes for Minecraft Preview 1.21.0.20.

Minecraft 1.21.0.20 Update: What’s Included in the Latest Patch

What’s New in Minecraft Preview 1.21.0.20

Dangerous Dilemmas

Ominous trials is an emerging Ominous Event that can be discovered by venturing into a Trial Chamber while under the effects of Bad Omen.

• During this event, players will be challenged with facing even more powerful Trial Spawners, if they have the courage to do so!
• Please be aware: While there may be changes currently present in the Java Edition Snapshot that have not yet been implemented here, we are actively working on additional adjustments that will be featured in future Previews.

Menacing flask

• An item which can be consumed by players to receive the Bad Omen effect for 1 hour and 40 minutes
• Comes in 5 variations, one for each Bad Omen level
• The bottle breaks when consumed
• Can be stacked to 64
• Can be found uncommonly in any Vaults that are unlocked with Trial Keys, and is dropped by Raid Captains when defeated outside a Raid

Unsettling trial key

• A new variant of the Trial Key which can only be obtained by defeating an Ominous Trial Spawner
• They can be used to unlock Ominous Vaults

Menacing encounter generator

• A more powerful active phase of the Trial Spawner with unique challenges and rewards
• Provides a more challenging experience that players can opt into for better rewards
• If a Trial Spawner detects a player with the Trial Omen effect, it will activate an Ominous state if:
• It is not in cooldown
• It is in cooldown but was not Ominous during its last activation
• Making it Ominous this way will bypass the cooldown
• During its active state, it will:
• Glow blue instead of orange
• Emit soul flames instead of normal flames
• More commonly spawn mobs with equipment if they can wear it
• The equipment these mobs wear have Armor Trims applied from the Trial Chambers
• Periodically spawn potions and projectiles on top of unsuspecting players and mobs
• Becoming Ominous will despawn any existing mobs it spawned and reset its challenge
• It will stay Ominous until it has been defeated and its cooldown has finished
• When defeated, it will eject a different set of loot than normal Trial Spawners

Forbidden Treasury

• A variant of Vaults that have a different texture and emit soul flames instead of normal flames
• These can be found throughout the Trial Chambers in harder to find places and require an Ominous Trial Key to unlock
• These Vaults hold a more valuable set of rewards than the standard Vaults unlocked by Trial Keys
• Known Issue: Vaults in Trial Chambers may generate without loot and cannot be opened by Trial Key

Sinister happenings

• Bad Omen has been expanded to give access to an optional experience in Trial Chambers
• These optional experiences accessed through Bad Omen are now known as Ominous Events
• They are more challenging than usual, and are designed to shake up the experience in unique ways
• Illager Raids are an example of an existing Ominous Event
• The redesign of Bad Omen will bring about some changes:
• It has a new, shadowy icon and a sound for being applied to the player
• It is no longer given to players that defeat a Raid Captain outside a Raid
• Instead, players can gain access to Bad Omen by consuming a new Ominous Bottle

Evidence of Fate

• A variant that Bad Omen can transform into
• This occurs when the player is within detection range of a Trial Spawner that is not Ominous
• The transformed Trial Omen has a duration of 15 minutes multiplied by the previous Bad Omen level
• Players that have Trial Omen are surrounded by ominous particles

Effects of Mobs

Several new effects have been included:

Charged by the wind:

• Affected entities will emit a wind burst upon death
• Brewed with an Awkward Potion and a Breeze Rod

Weaving is the process of interlacing two sets of yarn or thread at right angles to create a fabric.

• Affected entities will spread Cobweb blocks upon death
• Non-player entities with this effect can walk through Cobweb at normal speeds
• Brewed with an Awkward Potion and a Cobweb block

Dripping:

• Affected entities will spawn two Slimes upon death
• Brewed with an Awkward Potion and a Slime Block

Infested: The area was overrun with pests and vermin.

• Affected entities have a 5% chance to spawn 1-2 Silverfish when hurt
• Brewed with an Awkward Potion and a Stone block
• These effects can be encountered while taking on an Ominous Trial Spawner
• Spawners in an area will select a unique effect for the duration of their challenge, and drop them as lingering potions onto mobs and players nearby

There are certain mobs that cannot be affected by these effects.

• Slimes are immune to Oozing
• Silverfish are immune to Infested

The duration of these mob effects is currently not consistent with Java Edition and will be addressed in the near future.

Wind

• The Breeze no longer Long Jumps into lava
• Breeze now properly deflects most projectiles (except fireworks and fishing rod lures)
• The Breeze now plays all of its sounds properly, even when off-screen

Judicial bodies

• Trial Chambers now generate slightly more rarely and a bit more spaced out from each other

Experiment generator

• Trial Spawner activates only if it is in the line of sight of a player
• Ominous Trial Spawners in the same room are more likely to spawn the same selection of projectiles
• Becoming Ominous will despawn any existing mobs it spawned and reset its challenge
• Trial Spawner in Ominous state spawns mobs with equipment they can wear
• That equipment will have Armor Trims from the Trial Chambers

Minecraft Blocks

• The Heavy Core can now be waterlogged
• The Heavy Core doesn’t pop as an item when Lava or Water flows across it
• The Heavy Core can now be pushed and pulled by Pistons without breaking
• The Heavy Core now has a map color of METAL
• The Heavy Core now has pickaxe as its preferred tool, and its destroy times have been adjusted

Spider Webs

• Added unique sounds for Cobw

Wind energy

• Wind Charges no longer collide with nor destroy End Crystals
• Wind Charges also no longer collide with other Wind Charges

What’s New in Minecraft Preview 1.21.0.20

Introducing the New and Improved Bedrock Preview Player Profile!

View of Accomplishments:

• Observe the progress of your friend’s achievements and receive suggestions for potential achievements that you can collaborate on together!
• Curious about what to do next? Take a look at the suggested achievements specifically for you.

View of Friends:

• Managing your friends in Minecraft has never been simpler. You can easily access your friends list and search for new friends through our recently updated Add Friends screen.

View of the followers:

• View your followers on the “Followers”tab and see if there are any individuals you would like to add as friends.

Viewing Statistics:

• View your Minecraft statistics, which include the number of blocks mined, distance traveled, time spent playing, and mobs defeated. These stats are a compilation of your gameplay across all platforms.
• Click on the “Compare stats” button and choose a friend to participate in a fun and friendly competition.

View Stats Comparison:

• You can compare your stats with others to see who has broken the most blocks, traveled the farthest distance, defeated the most mobs, and played for the longest time.

To access the updated Profile Screen:

• You can access your profile from the Play menu in the updated Play Screen UI.
• To view your friends’ profiles, open the Friends Drawer and click on their names. Alternatively, you can also use the “Search for Players”option in the Friends Drawer to discover new profiles.
• In the previous user interface, access the Friends tab and select “Add Friends”. Then, search for your desired friends and click on their profiles to view them.

Inclusivity and Accessibility

• Fixed issue where pressing Enter on a keyboard, keypad or controller (menu button) does not send message in the Chat screen

Inclusive Design

• Fixed various keys not being bindable when using external keyboards on mobile devices

Block Elements

• Cauldrons filled with potions now keep the color of the potion when pushed by a Piston
• Containers being cloned over no longer keep their container screens open and cause crashes
• The “tallgrass”block is now split into unique instances “short_grass”and “fern”
• Items drops from blocks destroyed in an explosion now get merged into bigger item stacks before spawning in the world
• All blocks now drop items by default when exploded with TNT
• Added a new game rule to control decay of drops from TNT explosions, named “tntExplosionDropDecay”
• The rule can be set to “true”to re-enable the previous behavior where not all blocks would drop when exploded by TNT

Yacht

• Player can now stand on Boats that float on water

Revamped Edit World Interface

• Export World or Export as Template if clear player data is set it will be applied in a copy and then exported (Preview Only)

Pro Strategies

• The Game Tip for sneaking now resolves itself properly when the player sneaks

Controller Button Tooltips

• “Draw”and “Release”tooltips now appear for Crossbows
• “Read Book”tooltip now appears when it’s possible to read a Book from a Lectern even when you are not holding an item
• “Place”tooltip now appears for doors

Mechanics

• Fixed an issue where the ‘Let It Go’ trophy did not unlock on PlayStation®4
• When using an item on an entity, it is now necessary to release the use button before being able to use it again, which prevents players from inadvertently consuming items themselves when interacting with entities
• Sprinting speed is no longer activated with a delay
• Ensure the right controller gets assigned to player 1 when playing on Xbox

E-commerce Platform

• Fixed an issue that could cause the loading screen to get stuck for some time at 41%

Enemies and Creatures

• Naturally spawning mobs now spawn at the center of a Block

Kingdoms

• Fixed crashes that could occur when creating worlds on new Realms and backing out at the Online Safety dialog box
• Updated the ‘Are you sure you want to opt out?’ Realms Stories modal to ensure players know they can opt in later (Preview Only)
• Fixed inconsistent displaying of unread badges for new posts in the Story Feed tab (Preview Only)
• In Realms, blocks no longer reappear after breaking them in Creative Mode with Delayed Block Breaking toggle turned off

Enhancing Accessibility

• The Realms Stories New Post screen now enumerates its active buttons with text-to-speech on (Preview Only)

Reliability and efficiency

• Assist in preventing app/flow restart on Android devices when the dark mode is toggled on or off.

Graphical user interface (GUI)

• Fixed a bug where GUI scale was not modifiable after changing between handheld and docked mode on Switch consoles
• Indentation was added to list items in some modals to improve readability. This change should make it easier to read those lists.
• On touch devices, when moving items between different slots, the icon no longer appears as duplicated between the moving item and the destination slot
• On touch devices, when moving enchanted items between different slots, the moving icon is now rendered correctly
• On touch devices, stack-splitting UI no longer appears for unstackable items
• On touch devices, items from Creative Inventory are now unselectable
• On touch devices, it is now possible to swap two identical items
• Removed faulty hotbar scale setting for Pocket UI

In addition, Minecraft Bedrock Preview 1.21.0.20 includes numerous technical updates. Those who wish to explore them can refer to the official patch notes.