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

Last week, Mojang revealed the final feature for the Minecraft 1.21 update: ominous trials. This addition brought along a wave of new challenges in the form of ominous trial spawners, new mob effects, and more. Unfortunately, these features were only added to the Java Edition, not Bedrock.

That said, to avoid further confusion, developers confirmed that the new ominous trials would be coming to Bedrock Edition soon. Fortunately, players won't have to wait much longer to try the ominous trials and all their related features, as this week's Minecraft Preview 1.21.0.20 is bringing them to you.

The latest Minecraft Preview 1.21.0.20 introduces ominous trials along with other ominous features like vaults, spawners, trial keys, and more. It also includes breeze bug fixes and a new look for profile preview. Let's go over the patch notes for Minecraft Preview 1.21.0.20.

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Minecraft Preview 1.21.0.20 patch notes: All you need to know

Experimental features in Minecraft Preview 1.21.0.20

Ominous trials

Ominous trials is a new Ominous Event that can be accessed by exploring a Trial Chamber with Bad Omen.

• This event will have players facing more powerful Trial Spawners, if they dare!
• Please note: There are some changes that are already in the Java Edition Snapshot that haven’t made it here, but we are working on more tweaks that will be included in the upcoming Previews.

Ominous bottle

• 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

Ominous 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

Ominous trial spawner

• 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 that has the Trial Omen effect, the spawner will become Ominous 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
• While active, 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

Ominous vault

• 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

Ominous events

• 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
• Bad Omen is getting some changes with this redesign:
• 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

Trial omen

• 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

Mob effects

The following new effects have been added:

Wind Charged:

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

Weaving:

• 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

Oozing:

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

Infested:

• 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

Some mobs are immune to these effects:

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

Known issue: The duration of these mob effects is different to Java Edition and will be fixed soon

Breeze

• 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

Trial chambers

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

Trial spawner

• 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

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

Cobweb

• Added unique sounds for Cobw

Wind charge

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

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Features and bug fixes in Minecraft Preview 1.21.0.20

Updated Player Profile in Bedrock Preview!

Updated player profile in new Bedrock Preview (Image via Mojang)

Achievements View:

• See your friend’s achievement progress and some suggested next achievements you can work on together!
• Wondering what to do next? Check out your own suggested achievements.

Friends View:

• It has never been easier to manage your friends in Minecraft. View your friends list and search for friends using our updated Add Friends screen.

Followers View:

• Check out your followers with the handy “Followers” view and see if there’s anyone you would like to add as a friend.

Stats View:

• Check out your Minecraft stats, including blocks broken, distance traveled, time played, and mobs defeated. The stats view combines play across all platforms.
• Press the “Compare stats” button and select a friend to engage in a little friendly competition.

Compare Stats View:

• Compare stats with others to see who’s broken more blocks, traveled more distance, defeated more mobs, and played longer.

Getting to the new Profile Screen:

• In the new Play Screen UI you can access Profile from the Play menu.
• Open the Friends Drawer and click on your friends to see their profiles, or click “Search for Players” from the Friends Drawer to find new profiles.
• In the old UI, click “Add Friends” from the Friends tab and search for friends. Click on them to view their profiles.

Accessibility

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

Accessibility features

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

Blocks

• 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

Boat

• Player can now stand on Boats that float on water

Updated Edit World Screen

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

Game Tips

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

Gamepad 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

Gameplay

• 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

Marketplace

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

Mobs

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

Realms

• 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

Accessibility features

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

Stability and performance

• Support prevention of app/flow restart when dark mode toggled on or off on across Android devices.

User interface

• Fixed a bug where GUI scale was not modifiable after changing between handheld and docked mode on Switch consoles
• Added missing indentation to list items in some modals, which should make those lists easier to read.
• 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

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Other than these, Minecraft Bedrock Preview 1.21.0.20 has many technical changes. Players who are interested in checking them out can read the official patch notes here.