Minecraft 26.1 "Tiny Takeover" Update!

Tiny Takeover came out on March 24, 2026, as the first game drop of 2026. It is version 26.1 in Java Edition and 26.10 in Bedrock Edition. The update is about baby mobs. Almost all of them have a new look, and the golden dandelion keeps a baby from growing up.

This is the first Java Edition release with the new version numbers, which are now named after the year. The first number is the year, the second is the number of the update within that year, and the third is the hotfix. The last version under the old scheme was 1.21.11.

Baby mobs

A baby mob in Minecraft used to be a scaled-down copy of the adult. Now babies have their own models and textures. Only the baby nautilus and the ghastling stay as they were.

Who changed

39 mobs got new baby models.

• On the farm and at home, these are the cow, mooshroom, pig, sheep, chicken, rabbit, horse, donkey, mule, camel, llama, trader llama, goat, cat, and wolf.
• In the wild, these are the fox, ocelot, panda, polar bear, armadillo, bee, and sniffer.
• In the water, these are the axolotl, dolphin, squid, glow squid, and turtle.
• In the Nether, these are the piglin, zombified piglin, hoglin, zoglin, and strider.
• The villager, zombie villager, zombie, husk, drowned, skeleton horse, and zombie horse changed too.

What else changed for babies

• Saddles, horse armor, wolf armor, carpets, and chests are no longer shown on baby mobs.
• Baby axolotls now have a play dead animation.
• Baby goats turn their head when ramming.
• In Java Edition, baby polar bears no longer attack foxes.
• Camel husks no longer have babies.
• Baby skeleton horses and zombie horses do not grow up. Skeleton horses and zombie horses no longer panic when hurt.
• The black dots pattern on adult horses was changed to match the new pattern on foals.

Rabbits

Both baby and adult rabbits got new models, textures, and animations. A rabbit also tilts its head while standing still. The Programmer Art resource pack lost its rabbit textures, since the old ones do not fit the new model.

Golden dandelion

The golden dandelion stops aging. Give it to a baby mob and it stays small until it gets a second one.

• Crafted from a dandelion and eight gold nuggets . It does not generate naturally.
• Wandering traders sell it too.
• When a baby gets the flower, it stops growing and green particles appear around it. The flower is used up.
• After a second golden dandelion, the baby grows again.
• While growth is paused, the baby does not despawn.
• It does not work on undead mobs, piglins, or villagers.
• It can be planted or put in a flower pot like any flower.
• It makes yellow dye and a suspicious stew with the Saturation effect.
• It cannot go in a composter , and bees ignore it.
• Piglins run to a dropped golden dandelion and take it.

Name tag

You no longer have to hunt for a name tag in chests. It can be crafted now.

• You need paper and one gold, iron, or copper nugget.
• Librarians no longer sell name tags. At the master level they offer red and yellow candles instead, for three emeralds each.
• Wandering traders sometimes sell a name tag for one emerald.
• Name tags no longer appear in woodland mansion and ancient city chests.

Armor on baby mobs

• Helmets, chestplates, leggings, and boots got their own models and textures for baby zombies, husks, drowned, zombie villagers, piglins, and zombified piglins.
• Armor trims are not shown on these mobs.
• Small armor stands still show scaled-down adult armor.

New animal voices

• Kittens, chicks, foals, piglets, and puppies have their own voices. The game used to take the adult animal's voice and raise its pitch.
• Adult cats, pigs, cows, and chickens got voice variants. Cats have royal, pigs have mini and big, cows have moody, and chickens have picky.
• The old sounds stay in the game as the classic variant.
• Each animal gets its variant at random.
• Pigs now make sounds when they eat.

Trumpet for note blocks

• A note block placed on copper sounds like a trumpet. This works with the block of copper , cut copper , its slab and stairs, chiseled copper , and their waxed variants.
• The sound depends on how oxidized the copper is. That gives four timbres in total.
• In Bedrock Edition, cut copper slabs and stairs started to work this way later, in version 26.20.

Stonecutter

• Stone can now be cut in the stonecutter into cobblestone and blocks made from it.
• Deepslate can be turned directly into cobbled or polished deepslate, bricks, or tiles.

Other changes

Tripwire

• In Java Edition, tripwire is now opaque and easier to see.

Strider

• In Java Edition, a strider standing on another strider now takes on the warmth of the one below it. Bedrock Edition already worked this way.

Lighting

• In Java Edition, the way the game turns light levels into on-screen brightness was rewritten. The overall look is almost the same, and several old bugs are gone.
• Night Vision now simply adds ambient light. Fully dark areas no longer look brighter than lit ones.
• Darkness and the darkening during the Wither fight work the same way in every dimension.

Interface and settings in Java Edition

World Options

• In the options opened from the pause menu, the difficulty button was replaced with a World Options button. The new screen holds the difficulty and the game rules.
• Operators can change the rules in an existing world.
• The game rules screen has a search by name, description, and category.

Display

• By default, fullscreen no longer takes exclusive control of the monitor. The Exclusive Fullscreen setting brings the old mode back. It applies after the game restarts.
• The main menu has a new panorama based on Tiny Takeover.

Chat

• The chat screen now always opens, even when chat is restricted by settings. The game shows what is restricted above the input field.

Old worlds

• If a world was made in an older version, the Play Selected World button is replaced with Upgrade and Play. The game shows the upgrade progress when you start it.
• Until the world is upgraded, the Edit and Re-Create buttons are disabled.

Launching the game

• The game now requires Java 25.
• The default launch options now give the game 4 GB of memory instead of 2 GB.

For servers and map makers

• Villager and wandering trader trades can now be set and changed with data packs.
• World clocks were added. Each dimension can have its own, and the /time command can pause a clock, resume it, and change its time.
• The new /swing command makes an entity, such as a mannequin, swing its arm.
• The /fetchprofile command got an entity subcommand.
• Voice variants for cats, pigs, cows, and chickens can also be added with data packs.
• Server operators see a notice when disk space is running low.
• World files are laid out differently. The Overworld, the Nether, and the End are stored in the dimensions folder, and player data in the players folder. Keep this in mind for manual backups and for tools that read world files.
• The data pack format version is now 101.1, and the resource pack one is 84.0.
• This is the first Java Edition release that shipped only without obfuscation, meaning the code is not deliberately scrambled.

Two releases with fixes followed. Version 26.1.1 on April 1 fixed a bug that made it impossible to report chat messages. Version 26.1.2 on April 9 fixed a bug that let spectators attack players. The next update was 26.2 "Chaos Cubed", released on June 16, 2026.