Highlights

  • Minecraft on Xbox Series X and Xbox Series S now supports 4K resolution, improving the visual experience for players.
  • The latest Minecraft Preview update introduced the Armadillo mob and the ability to craft Wolf Armor.
  • Update 1.21 will bring additional features such as Trial Chambers, a Crafter block, and a special spawner for loot.

A new update for the popular creative sandbox game Minecraft has added a long-requested feature to the Xbox Series X and Xbox Series S versions of the title. The change will significantly improve the visual experience for players on both consoles.

Version 1.20.60.23 of Minecraft Preview, a separate client that's used to test changes that will roll out in future updates for the game's main build, went live on December 13. It brought some new content such as a player-voted mob character, armor, and blocks, among other things. Funnily enough, what could be considered as the most exciting addition in this update might have been overlooked by most people.

Minecraft official art with the Bethesda logo
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Listed near the very end of the official changelog for Minecraft Preview update 1.20.60.23 was a note that said Xbox Series consoles finally received 4K resolution support. The version of Minecraft that ran on these two machines had been the Xbox One X build that was never optimized. As a result, Minecraft players on the Xbox Series consoles could do nothing but settle for a 1080p experience and ask for something better while even their counterparts on Sony's PlayStation 4 and PlayStation 5 enjoyed 4K for the longest time.

minecraft preview xbox series 4k support

It's unclear why Minecraft developer Mojang Studios took so long to provide 4K support for the Xbox Series consoles. As Mojang Studios and Xbox are both owned by Microsoft, one would have assumed that the Xbox Series X and Xbox Series S versions of Minecraft would have been on top of the priority list along with the PC build. Regardless of how long it took for Minecraft on the Xbox Series consoles to receive 2160p support, players on both machines should welcome the change for the improved visual experience it will offer.

Going back to the rest of Minecraft Preview version 1.20.60.23's additions, Mojang Studios has introduced the Armadillo that won the Minecraft 2023 Mob Vote. The adorable critter drops the new Armadillo Scute that can be used to craft Wolf Armor, a set that was also added in the patch.

The Armadillo is set to ship with the main client's 1.21 update, while there is still no word on when the Wolf Armor will make it to the public build of Minecraft. In addition to the Armadillo, update 1.21 will bring an automated Redstone-powered block called a Crafter, procedurally generated underground structures called Trial Chambers, and a specialized spawner for Trial Chambers that will reward players with loot for killing enemies. Those eager to see a glimpse of the content that will be featured in the next major patch should try out the latest beta build for now as Mojang Studios has yet to provide a release date for update 1.21.

MIinecraft Preview 1.20.60.23 Patch Notes

EXPERIMENTAL FEATURES

ARMADILLO

  • Added the Armadillo
  • The Armadillo is a neutral mob
  • Drops Armadillo Scutes periodically
  • Drops Armadillo Scutes when brushed
  • Spawns in Savannas
  • Favorite food is Spider Eyes
  • When an Armadillo detects a threat, it rolls up
    • Threats are:
      • Players who are sprinting
      • Players on a mount or in a vehicle
      • Undead mobs

    • It does not roll up if it is fleeing, in water, in the air, or if being led
    • When an Armadillo is rolled up it does not walk, cannot eat, and will not be tempted by food
    • It continues to scan for threats, and if there are no threats detected for 3 seconds, it will unroll

ARMADILLO SCUTES

  • Can be used to craft Wolf Armor
  • Dropped by Armadillos
  • Dispensers can be used to brush Armadillo Scutes off Armadillos

WOLF ARMOR

  • Using Wolf Armor on an adult tamed Wolf will equip the armor on the Wolf
    • Only a Wolf's owner can put Wolf Armor on their tamed Wolf, and with this in mind, Dispensers cannot put Wolf Armor on Wolves

  • Using Shears on a Wolf that is wearing armor will make it drop the armor
    • Only a Wolf's owner can shear a Wolf Armor from it, and with this in mind, Dispensers cannot remove Wolf Armor from Wolves

  • Wolf Armor gives the same protection as Diamond Horse Armor
  • If a Wolf dies while wearing armor, it will drop the armor

BLOCKS

  • Exposed, Weathered, and Oxidized Copper Bulbs in Trial Chambers are now waxed (MCPE-176949)
  • Trial Spawner randomizes the loot table only once each combat, for all players

COPPER GRATE

  • Fixed an issue with Waxed Copper Grate transparency (MCPE-177171)

BREEZE

  • Breeze wind and wind charge rendering have been tweaked

COMMANDS

  • Added a new command that will hide and reset HUD elements visibility.
    • /hud hide <hud element>
    • /hud reset <hud element>

The HUD elements available are:

  • paperdoll
  • armor
  • tooltips
  • touch_controls
  • crosshair
  • hotbar
  • health
  • progress_bar
  • hunger
  • air_bubbles
  • horse_health
  • all
  • To use the command, turn on the Upcoming Creator Features toggle.

FEATURES AND BUG FIXES

GAMEPLAY

  • Fixed a crash occurrence when switching between dimensions frequently (MCPE-166934)
  • Fixed certain cases that caused players to take unexpected fall damage when performing interactions at specific heights like 62 (MCPE-168518)
  • Reintroduced a fix for players sometimes taking unexpected fall damage while building blocks while standing on them (MCPE-120140)
  • Fixed some cases where players could take unexpected fall damage near ledges that they were visibly not falling off of (MCPE-120140)

MOBS

  • Fixed an issue where mobs, such as Zombies, were unable to pick up full stacks of items from the ground

GRAPHICAL

  • Added 4k resolution support for Xbox Series consoles

USER INTERFACE

  • The friends drawer in the new Play screen now allows joining a friend’s world with a join button. Please send us your feedback on this new feature here!

UPDATED EDIT WORLD SCREEN

The latest Bedrock Preview introduces a new way of editing your worlds in a new redesigned experience. Some features are not supported yet, but we wanted to give you an early look at what we’re building. An updated Edit World experience will gradually be rolled out to players starting today.

Changes: Edit World is being updated with improved navigation, more descriptions, and a new look and feel that matches the new Create New World Screen. It’ll be rolled out gradually across Android, iOS, Windows, and Xbox in the following days. We’re still working on some things, like support for other platforms, and some minor bugs and improvements. We need some more time to work on these features in order to provide the best possible experience. We would love to hear what you think! Share your feedback on the Feedback Site and put “Edit World” in the title so we can find it.

REALMS

  • Introduced Realms Stories, a new social hub for your Realm
    • Realms Stories features include:
      • The Story Feed – lets you share your greatest gameplay moments with your fellow Realm members
      • The Timeline – lets you see when other members are playing on the Realm
      • The Members tab – shows a list of all Realm members and their permission levels

    • Please note that Realms Stories will not be accessible the first time you launch 1.20.60.23. To use Realms Stories, launch the game, close it, and then launch it again.
    • You can find more details about this feature on the feedback site, where we also hope you will share your thoughts about the feature.
    • Known issues:
      • The Story Feed won't update with new stories posted by other users until you exit Realms Stories and come back
      • Users that have been invited to the Realm but have not yet joined, and prior members who were in the Realm but have since left, will show up in the Members tab
      • Notifying owners about stories/comments doesn't work
      • Clicking the 'Manage Members' button as a Realm owner can result in a hang
      • Comments may not always appear properly
      • Screen-reader narration isn't finished
      • Realm members don't see themselves in the Members tab

TECHNICAL UPDATES

ADD-ONS AND SCRIPT ENGINE

  • The "minecraft:geometry.full_block" identifier for the "minecraft:geometry" block component has been added
    • The "minecraft:geometry.full_block" identifier provides a centered 1x1x1 cube geometry
    • When combined with a material_instances component with "render_layer": "opaque", it enables rendering-only capabilities previously included in the "minecraft:unit_cube" component including:
      • Occludes both vanilla and custom neighboring full blocks
      • Culls faces that neighbor vanilla and custom neighboring full blocks to improve rendering performance

  • Add content error logging to help creators identify content that hits or exceeds the state bit/permutation count per block (MCPE-177045)

GENERAL

  • Updated listed values for the Vanilla "orientation" block state in documentation

API

  • Added Biome Registry biome names and StructureFeatureType enum to vanilla metadata generation

COMPONENTS

  • Added an "interact_filters" field to the "ageable" component, which allows to specify conditions on when the actor can be fed

EDITOR

The Editor and its corresponding API are in early development, and available for keyboard/mouse on Windows PC Bedrock Preview builds. Tag us on social channels with #BedrockEditor.

Learn how to use the Editor, join the GitHub Discussion discussion forum to engage with the team, and get started building extensions via the starter kit and samples.

Updates this week:

  • Default block for BlockType in Selection tool is now 'grass'.
  • Scripted property panes will now be scrollable once they reach a certain height.
  • Editor Playtest pane now supports setting time of day and weather when testing levels, as well as minor tweaks to the layout. Time in the Playtest pane supports either Minecraft time (0-23999) or 24hr time (00:00-23:59).
  • Added new bindings and support for scripts to be able to push a TypeScript object as a payload on to the transaction stack, and register a set of handler functions which will receive the payload when the transaction system receives an undo or redo event
  • A Navigation record system has been added to Editor. View the GitHub release notes for more details on features and functionality.
  • Added an export for stringFromExtension so that it can be used in both internal and external Creator extensions
  • A new line tool is added to the Editor. View the GitHub release notes for more details on features and functionality.
  • Editor UI now scales according to the screen resolution rather than the game window size.
  • Property options in the play/test pane retain their values when the game reloads.

This week we are officially closing the v0.4.X semantic iterations and considering our work towards v0.5 done. View release notes in GitHub for additional details and an aggregate summary of all v0.4.X iteration updates.

MOLANG

  • Released Molang queries from experimental
    • query.is_cooldown_type
    • query.cooldown_time
    • query.cooldown_time_remaining
    • query.relative_block_has_any_tag
    • query.relative_block_has_all_tags
    • query.block_neighbor_has_any_tag
    • query.block_neighbor_has_all_tags
    • query.block_has_any_tag
    • query.block_has_all_tags
    • query.bone_orientation_trs
    • query.bone_orientation_matrix

EXPERIMENTAL TECHNICAL FEATURES

ADD-ONS AND SCRIPT ENGINE

  • The "minecraft:unit_cube" block component has been deprecated. Using it in content marked 1.20.60 and beyond will provide a content error
    • Using content marked prior to 1.20.60 will have their "minecraft:unit_cube" block component upgraded to a "minecraft:geometry" block component with a "minecraft:geometry.full_block" identifier, but will maintain backwards compatibility with all behaviors

API

  • Updated function addEffect to return the added effect (or undefined if it failed). This change is in beta and does not affect the currently released versions of this function.
  • Added item dynamic properties
    • Added function clearDynamicProperties(): void - Removes all dynamic properties from the item stack
    • Added function getDynamicProperty(identifier: string): boolean | number | string | Vector3 | undefined - Returns the value of the dynamic property with the given identifier if it exists, otherwise returns undefined
    • Added function getDynamicPropertyIds(): string[] - Returns an array of all dynamic property identifiers on the item stack
    • Added function getDynamicPropertyTotalByteCount(): number - Returns the total byte count of all dynamic properties on the item stack
    • Added function setDynamicProperty(identifier: string, value?: boolean | number | string | Vector3): void - Sets the value of the dynamic property with the given identifier. If the value is undefined, the dynamic property will be removed
    • Added function clearDynamicProperties(): void - Removes all dynamic properties from the item stack
    • Added function getDynamicProperty(identifier: string): boolean | number | string | Vector3 | undefined - Returns the value of the dynamic property with the given identifier if it exists, otherwise returns undefined
    • Added function getDynamicPropertyIds(): string[] - Returns an array of all dynamic property identifiers on the item stack
    • Added function getDynamicPropertyTotalByteCount(): number - Returns the total byte count of all dynamic properties on the item stack
    • Added function setDynamicProperty(identifier: string, value?: boolean | number | string | Vector3): void - Sets the value of the dynamic property with the given identifier. If the value is undefined, the dynamic property will be removed

  • Added class EntityProjectileComponent. This component is used to shoot a projectile entity and modify its properties
  • Added interface ProjectileShootOptions. This interface is used with function EntityProjectileComponent.shoot to optionally modify the accuracy of the projectile when shot

MOLANG

  • Changed cooldown query slot IDs to be required for container slots with more than one index, logging content errors if not provided
    • query.cooldown_time(slotName,slotId)
    • query.cooldown_time_remaining(slotName,slotId)
    • query.is_cooldown_type(cooldownName,slotName,slotId)

GRAPHICAL

  • The player's body will now cast a shadow in first person mode in the Deferred Technical Preview. Note that some held items will still not cast shadows
  • The loading screen will no longer turn black on Android when entering a PBR-capable world with the Deferred Technical Preview enabled
  • Hoppers in Minecarts no longer exhibit ghosting artifacts during camera motion when the Deferred Technical Preview is enabled
  • The game no longer crashes when exiting a world with the Deferred Technical Preview enabled