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Minecraft update adds armadillos: What else is new in patch notes?

These are off the scale(s).

Mojang

• Cole Luke

Published: Wednesday, 24 April 2024 at 2:25 pm

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Both Minecraft Java and Bedrock Editions have received a new update that introduces armadillos, new wolf variations and more.

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We’ll also take a look at what else is new in the patch notes, as there are quite a lot of changes made to the game.

Be sure to check out the new wolf variants in detail, as you can find out where to find them if you want a veritable dog pack in your base.

You won’t need to worry about leaving home if you’ve divided out the villager jobs to keep things ticking over until you get back.

As armadillos are found in certain biomes, some Minecraft seeds may be better suited than others as they may provide more opportunities for finding your new scaly pals.

There’s plenty to sink our teeth into so we’ll dilly-dally no more!

Minecraft update today: What's changed in Bedrock?

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New to Minecraft Bedrock are armadillos, a mob found in the savanna and badlands biomes, as well as eight new wolf variations and wolf armour!

There are also new experimental features such as maces to clobber mobs with.

You can check out the new additions down below courtesy of the official patch notes.

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Armadillo

• The Armadillo is a new passive mob that:

  • spawns in Savannas and Badlands biomes
  • drops Armadillo Scutes periodically
  • drops Armadillo Scutes when brushed
  • its favorite food is Spider Eyes

Armadillo Rolling Up Behavior

• Armadillo rolls up when it detects a threat such as:

  • a sprinting player
  • a player in a vehicle or mounted
  • undead mobs
  • a mob, or a player that has attacked it recently

• It does not roll up when:

  • it is fleeing
  • in water
  • in the air or
  • on a leash

• When an Armadillo is rolled up it does not walk, cannot eat, and will not be tempted by food

  • It will continue to scan for threats, occasionally peeking to check the surroundings: if none are detected for 4 seconds, it will unroll
  • In a rolled up state, its shell will protect it, and reduce the damage dealt to it, even allowing it to fully resist weak attacks
  • Spiders and Cave Spiders will run away from Armadillos, and only if they are not in a rolled up state

Armadillo Scutes

• Armadillo Scutes can be used to craft Wolf Armour
• They are dropped by Armadillos
• Dispensers can be used to brush Armadillo Scutes off Armadillos

Wolf Armour

• The Wolf Armour will protect the wolf from most damage sources until the armour loses all durability and breaks
• Wolf Armour shows signs of increased breakage as durability goes down
• Players can repair the Wolf Armour with Armadillo Scutes while it is equipped on the Wolf, or on an Anvil using Armadillo Scutes
• Wolf Armour can be dyed in similar fashion to Leather Armour
• Using Wolf Armour on an adult tamed Wolf will equip the armour on the Wolf
• Only a Wolf's owner can put a Wolf Armour on their tamed Wolf, and with this in mind; Dispensers cannot put Wolf Armour on wolves
• Using Shears on a Wolf that is wearing armour will make it drop the armour
• Only a Wolf's owner can repair a Wolf Armour on a Wolf or shear a Wolf Armour from it, and with this in mind; Dispensers cannot remove Wolf Armour from wolves
• If a Wolf dies while wearing armour, it will drop the armour

Tamed Wolves health and damage

• Tamed Wolves now have 40 health points (20 hearts) instead of 20 health points (10 hearts)

• They no longer take half of the damage from most environmental sources like they used to do

  • In most cases this change will make no difference given the health boost, but now they can withstand more damage from players and arrows

• Feeding a Wolf now heals twice as many health points

• Adjusted spawning conditions for Wolves, allowing them to spawn on Coarse Dirt and Podzol blocks

Wolf variants

New Wolf variants have been added. The variant is determined by the biome they spawn in.

• Pale Wolf - The familiar Wolf variant that now spawns in the Taiga biome, with a default pack size of 4
• Woods Wolf - A variant that spawns in the Forest biome. This will be the dominant Wolf variant that you will be able to find in the Overworld, since the Forest biome is very common
• Ashen Wolf - A variant that spawns in the Snowy Taiga biome
• Black Wolf - A variant that spawns in the Old Growth Pine Taiga biome, in smaller packs of 2 to 4
• Chestnut Wolf - A variant that spawns in the Old Growth Spruce Taiga biome, in smaller packs of 2 to 4
• Rusty Wolf - A variant that spawns in a new location for wolves - the Sparse Jungle biome, in smaller packs of 2 to 4
• Spotted Wolf - A variant that spawns in a new location for wolves - the Savanna Plateau biome, in larger packs of 4 to 8
• Striped Wolf - A variant that spawns in a new location for wolves, the Wooded Badlands biome, in larger packs of 4 to 8
• Snowy Wolf - A variant that spawns in the Grove biome. A rare type, that always walks alone

When summoned in other ways (eg using the Spawn Egg or using the summon command), the variant selection follows the natural spawning biome rules with the following extensions:

• Rusty Wolf: will be selected in all Jungle biomes, including Jungle and Bamboo Jungle Biomes
• Spotted Wolf: will be selected in all Savanna biomes, including Savanna and Windswept Savanna Biomes
• Striped Wolf: will be selected in all Badlands biomes, including Badlands and Eroded Badlands Biomes

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Realms Stories

• Introducing Realms Stories, a new social hub for your Realm

  • 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
  • Realm Events – Stories that get posted automatically when certain player actions are taken in the Realm. There are 19 unique Realm Events so far – can you discover all of them?

• Known issues:

  • We need a little more time to deliver the best possible experience for iOS, and will be rolling out Realms Stories on that platform in the near future.
  • Xbox-only: If multiple users are signed into an Xbox, then the users might not be able to post to Realms Stories from that Xbox (unless all users besides the primary user log out).
  • Xbox-only: If multiple users are signed into an Xbox, Realm Events will not be posted, but they will be recorded. If all users but the primary user sign out of Xbox, and the primary user returns to the Minecraft play screen, the Realm Events that were recorded before should get posted. However, the Realm Events may be credited to the wrong user.
  • If users are in split-screen mode, only the primary user will be able to open Realms Stories.
  • If users are in with a guest (user who is not signed into their Microsoft account), and the primary user attempts to make a post, the post may fail, or be credited to the wrong user.

Enhancements to Finding Friends

We’ve improved the way you connect with players in Minecraft! To help you follow & friend players we added multiple features including:

• Lists of recommended and suggested friends
• Improved search to give partial results while you are typing
• Ability to share your profile information through a QR code or a share link
• A handy button that copies your Gamertag to the clipboard

Experimental Features:

Mace

• A new heavy weapon to smash your enemies!

• Leverage the weight of this new weapon to deal additional damage the farther you fall before hitting your target

  • Try it out by jumping down toward your target, and hit them before you hit the ground
  • Successfully striking a target in this way will negate any damage accumulated from the fall, similar to how a Wind Charge works
  • Other entities near the struck enemy will be knocked back by the immense force of the Mace

• Using a Mace will decrease its durability like any other weapon; repair it with Breeze Rods at an Anvil

• Players can use a Mace in combination with Wind Charges to launch up and deliver devastating smash attacks on their enemies

Breeze Rod

• A new item dropped by the Breeze that can be crafted into 4 Wind Charges, or used with the Heavy Core to craft the Mace

Heavy Core

• A mysterious, dense block which can be combined with a Breeze Rod to craft the Mace
• Heavy Cores can be obtained from Vaults

New Armour Trims

• Added Bolt and Flow Armour Trims and Smithing Templates
• These new Armour Trims can be obtained from Vaults
• Bolt can be duplicated using a Copper Block or Waxed Copper
• Flow can be duplicated using a Breeze Rod

New Banner Patterns

• Added Flow and Guster Banner Patterns
• These new Banner Patterns can be obtained from Vaults

New Pottery Sherds

• Added Flow, Guster, and Scrape Pottery Sherds
• These new Pottery Sherds appear on Decorated Pots throughout Trial Chambers

Trial Chambers

• Struggle no more to locate a Trial Chamber - level up your nearest Cartographer to Journeyman for the opportunity to trade for a Locator Map pointing to a nearby Trial Chamber

• Added new chambers and variations, with new challenges!

  • Remade chamber_9, and renamed it to "slanted"
  • Remade chamber_3, and renamed it to pedestal"

• Added Flow, Guster, and Scrape Pottery Sherds to the Decorated Pots in the decor structure pool

• Trial Spawners will now appear more frequently in the corridors

• Changed the layout of blocks around the Vaults

• The loot tables of Vaults in Trial Chambers have been updated to address some inventory management issues

  • You will now get no more than 1 unstackable item per Vault
  • You will more often get rewards which can stack together
  • Horse Armour and Saddles have been removed from the loot table

• Vaults in Trial Chambers can now eject:

  • Wind Charges
  • Bolt Armour Trim Smithing Template
  • Flow Armour Trim Smithing Template
  • Flow Banner Pattern
  • Guster Banner Pattern
  • Heavy Core

Minecraft update today: What's changed in Java?

Minecraft. Mojang Studios/Microsoft

Similarly to the Bedrock Edition, Java is also getting armadillos, new wolves and the mace.

There are a number of improvements made to the technical aspects of the game, such as a refreshed UI and the introduction of Japanese fonts.

Check out the most important parts of the Java patch notes!

New Features

• Added Armadillo and Armadillo Scutes
• Added Wolf Armour
• Added Wolf variants

Armadillo

• The Armadillo is a new passive mob

• Armadillos drop Armadillo Scutes periodically, and when brushed

• Armadillos spawn in Savannas and Badlands

• The Armadillo's favorite food is the Spider Eye

  • Armadillos are tempted by Spider Eyes
  • Feeding two adult Armadillos Spider Eyes makes them breed
  • Feeding a baby Armadillo a Spider Eye makes it grow up quicker

• The Armadillo rolls up when it detects a threat such as:

  • A player sprinting, riding a mount, or riding a vehicle
  • Undead mobs
  • A mob or a player it has recently been attacked by

• The Armadillo does not roll up when:

  • Fleeing, in water, in the air, or when on a Lead

• When an Armadillo is rolled up:

  • It does not walk, cannot eat, and will not be tempted by food

  • Its shell will protect it, reducing damage taken, even allowing it to fully resist weak attacks

  • It will continue to scan for threats, occasionally peeking to check the surroundings

    • If no threats are detected for 4 seconds, it will unroll

• Spiders and Cave Spiders will run away from Armadillos that are not in a rolled up state

Armadillo Scutes

• Armadillo Scutes are dropped by Armadillos periodically or when an Armadillo is brushed
• Armadillo Scutes can be used to craft Wolf Armour
• Dispensers can be used to brush Armadillo Scutes off Armadillos

Wolf Armour

• Wolf Armour can be crafted with Armadillo Scutes and can be dyed in a similar fashion to Leather Armour
• The Wolf Armour will protect the Wolf from most damage sources until the armour loses all durability and breaks
• Wolf Armour shows signs of breakage as durability goes down
• Using Armadillo Scutes on the Wolf Armour while it is equipped on the Wolf will repair it
• Using Shears on a Wolf that is wearing armour will drop the armour
• Wolf Armour can only be equipped on a tame adult Wolf
• Only the Wolf's owner can equip, repair, and shear Wolf Armour
• Dispensers cannot equip nor remove Wolf Armour

Wolf Variants

New Wolf variants have been added. The variant is determined by the biome they spawn in. Wolves spawn in packs, with a default pack size of 4.

• Pale Wolf - The Wolf we're all familiar with. This variant spawns in the Taiga biome
• Woods Wolf - A variant that spawns in the Forest biome. This will be the dominant Wolf variant that you will be able to find in the Overworld, since the Forest biome is very common
• Ashen Wolf - A variant that spawns in the Snowy Taiga biome
• Black Wolf - A variant that spawns in the Old Growth Pine Taiga biome, in smaller packs of 2-4
• Chestnut Wolf - A variant that spawns in the Old Growth Spruce Taiga biome, in smaller packs of 2-4
• Rusty Wolf - A variant that spawns in a new location for Wolves - the Sparse Jungle biome, in smaller packs of 2-4
• Spotted Wolf - A variant that spawns in a new location for Wolves - the Savanna Plateau biome, in larger packs of 4-8
• Striped Wolf - A variant that spawns in a new location for Wolves - the Wooded Badlands biome, in larger packs of 4-8
• Snowy Wolf - A variant that spawns in the Grove biome. This lone Wolf is a rare type, as it always walks alone

When summoned in other ways (eg using the Spawn Egg or using the summon command), the variant selection follows the natural spawning biome rules with the following extensions:

• Rusty Wolf: will be selected in all Jungle-like biomes, including Jungle and Bamboo Jungle Biomes
• Spotted Wolf: will be selected in all Savanna-like biomes, including Savanna and Windswept Savanna Biomes
• Striped Wolf: will be selected in all Badlands-like biomes, including Badlands and Eroded Badlands Biomes

Advancements

• Added the following advancements:

  • Isn't It Scute? - Get Armadillo Scutes from an Armadillo using a Brush
  • Shear Brilliance - Remove Wolf Armour from a Wolf using Shears
  • Good as New - Repair a damaged Wolf Armour using Armadillo Scutes
  • The Whole Pack - Tame one of each Wolf variant

Changes

• The UI has been updated with a fresher look
• Decreased the default size of the spawn chunks and made the value configurable
• Updated the health and damage dealt by Tamed Wolves
• Adjusted spawning conditions for Wolves, allowing them to spawn on Coarse Dirt and Podzol blocks
• Adjusted the texture of the Wolf Collar layer to be more consistent with the new Wolf Armour
• Adjusted passive mobs spawning in Grove biome to only include Rabbits, Foxes and Wolves
• Minor tweaks to existing Blocks, Items and Entities
• Added option to use Japanese variants of CJK characters
• Added support for Viossa language
• When entities leave or enter The End, the area they arrive in will now stay loaded for 15 seconds, matching the behavior of Nether Portals
• Improvements to the Game's Performance
• Improved handling of errors during saving and loading

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UI Updates

The UI has been updated to sport a fresher look and to be more consistent when it comes to the layout of different UI elements, all while retaining the essence and feel of the old screens.

• The menu background dirt texture has been replaced by a darkened background

  • The dirt background can be restored by using the built-in Programmer Art Resource Pack

  • Outside the game, the main menu panorama is displayed behind all screens

  • In the game, the world will be visible behind all screens

  • Paired with the darkened background is a blur

    • The strength of the blur can be configured in Video Settings and Accessibility Settings
    • In-game screens such as containers and books are not affected by these changes

• Screen elements such as titles and buttons are positioned more consistently across different screens

• The World Backups screen and the Players screen in the Realms menu have been updated

• Lists now have clearer borders at the top and bottom

• Button tooltips will no longer appear when hovering outside the containing element

• After defeating the Ender Dragon and entering the End Portal, the End Poem and credits are now displayed with a background based on the animated End Portal effect

• The animated Nether Portal texture is displayed when changing dimension to or from The Nether

• The animated End Portal effect is displayed when changing dimension to or from The End

Spawn Chunk Changes

• The size of the spawn chunks changed from a radius of 10 (19x19 entity-ticking chunks) to a radius of 2 (3x3 entity-ticking chunks)

  • This was done to reduce loading times, as well as memory and CPU usage
  • We opted to not fully remove spawn chunks to allow players who currently utilize this functionality to continue to do so

• Added a new gamerule spawnChunkRadius to set the size of the spawn chunks

  • Possible values are 0 to 32, where 0 completely disables the spawn chunks and 10 is equivalent to the functionality before this change
  • Default value is 2, equivalent to 3x3 entity ticking chunks
  • Note that setting this to a high value might require allocating more memory for the game in the Launcher

Tamed Wolves Health and Damage

• Tamed Wolves now have 40 health points (20 hearts) instead of 20 health points (10 hearts)

• They no longer take half of the damage from most environmental sources like they used to do

  • In most cases, this change will make no difference given the health boost, but they can now withstand more damage from players and arrows

• Feeding a Wolf now heals twice as many health points

Minor Tweaks to Blocks, Items and Entities

• Renamed scutes that drop from Turtles to Turtle Scutes

• Added unique sounds for Cobwebs

• Enchantments on Items are now always listed in the same order in tooltips, regardless of how they were added to those items

• Adjusted flying behaviour for Bees and Parrot to keep them from overshooting their position when flying up and down

• Llamas and Shulkers are no longer able to destroy Armour Stands

• Status effect particle colors are no longer blended into one particle color

  • All active visible status effect particles are now rendered separately

• Ctrl+Picking a renamed block (such as a Chest) in Creative Mode will now give a renamed item

• Ctrl+Picking a block no longer lists "(+NBT)" in the item tooltip

Accessibility

• The default focus is now always set when entering or exiting any menu while navigating using tab or arrow keys
• Added a new accessibility option to control the strength of the background blur when a menu is open

Japanese Font Variants

• A new option has been added to select Japanese variants for some CJK characters
• Replacement glyphs come from the Japanese version of the Unifont font
• The new option is included in a new "Font Settings" menu, accessible from the "Language" menu
• The default value of this option is based on the system locale language setting
• The "Force Unicode" button has been moved to "Font Settings"

Performance Improvements

• Improved Hopper performance

• Hoppers will no longer try to pick up item entities if there is a full block placed above it

  • Beehives and Bee Nests are exempt from this
  • This does not affect Minecarts with Hoppers

• Reduced time needed to generate Explorer Maps to Buried Treasures

Saving and Loading Improvements

• In Singleplayer, when errors occur during loading or saving of chunks, a warning will be shown in a toast

• Trying to join a Singleplayer world with less than 64 MB free disk space will show a warning screen

  • Additionally, a warning toast will be shown periodically while in game

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Authors

Cole LukeFreelance Writer

Cole Luke is a freelance journalist and video producer who contributes to Radio Times Gaming. He also has bylines for Digital Foundry, PC Gamer, Network N and more.

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