The block-building, mob-slaying, and terrain-exploring of Minecraft is still going strong after all these years and just recently received its biggest ever update this past week. Called the Village & Pillage update, a number of new features have been introduced to the Bedrock Edition of the sandbox experience, including a set of new creative blocks, the new Pillager mob, as well as the new Crossbow weapon.

As the Village & Pillage name suggests, various updates come in the form of the game’s trade-happy Villagers as well as introduce new hostile mob types in Pillagers and Ravagers. In addition, players can also expect revamped environments, a bevy of new items, and quite a few other inclusions such as Raids and assorted bug fixes. A full rundown (via Mojang) of the changes can be viewed below alongside a fun trailer.

Minecraft Village & Pillage Patch Notes

VILLAGE

• Updated Villages
  • Many new building types and enhanced village generation
  • Biome specific architecture for plains, desert, savannah, and taiga
• New Villagers
  • Villagers have new clothing to indicate their level, profession, and biome
  • Added Mason and Nitwit villagers
  • Villagers now sleep in beds
  • Villagers now visit their job sites during the day and go home at night
  • Greatly improved villager pathfinding
  • Villagers in existing worlds will convert to new villagers (if they are not part of a template world)
  • Zombie Villagers now have biome-specific and profession skin layers
• Village Job Sites
  • Villagers can now take on a new profession when near a job site block
  • While villagers claim these sites, they also have functions for players
  • Cartography Table – Provides an easier way to copy and enlarge maps. Maps can be locked by using glass panes
  • Grindstone – Used to repair weapons and tools, plus disenchanting
  • Barrel – Stores items like a chest but can still be opened with blocks on top of it
  • Smoker – Cooks food much faster than a furnace
  • Blast Furnace – Faster ore smelting
  • Composter – Adding enough crops will produce bone meal
  • Stonecutter – Easy crafting for stone and cobblestone items
  • Smithing Table and Fletching Table – Functionality coming in a later update
• Villager Trading
  • Added brand new villager trades (169044)
  • Villagers now have a visual based trading system and will hold up an item they wish to trade if the player is holding something they want
  • When villagers make trades, they gain experience. When they gain enough experience, they level up. Leveling up unlocks new trades
  • Villagers will resupply their trades when arriving at their job site (172559)
• Wandering Trader
  • A villager mob that will appear at a village’s gathering site periodically and stays for a period of 2-3 game days
  • This trader offers items from a wide variety of different biomes, random dyes, and other rare materials
  • Accompanied on their journey by two fancy llamas!
• Bells
  • When rung, all villagers will run into their houses
  • Bells ring when players interact with them or are powered by redstone

PILLAGE

• Pillager Outposts
  • The new tower hangout for pillagers that generate in the same biomes as villages
  • Pillagers will respawn around the tower
  • Clear them out and score some loot!
• Illager Captain
  • Can be found holding a banner in pillager outposts
  • The player that kills a captain will be given the Bad Omen effect
• Raids
  • When a player enters a village with Bad Omen, a raid will be triggered
  • Pillager enemies will attack a village in waves
  • Players that successfully defend a village from a raid will receive the Hero of the Village effect, giving a steep discount on trades with villagers
• Ravager
  • A powerful, new enemy mob found in illager patrols and during village raids
  • When running, it can destroy some blocks like crops so watch out!
  • Can be ridden into battle by illagers
• Pillager Patrols
  • Groups of illagers, pillagers, and ravagers can be found patrolling the overworld

NEW FEATURES

• Campfire
  • A new light source to cozy up your village
  • Works great as a fireplace in a home, with no fire spread to worry about
  • Throw some food on it and become a campfire cooking pro!
• Sweet Berries
  • A new source of food
  • Sweet Berry Bushes can be found in Taiga biomes
  • Watch out for thorns!
• Bamboo Jungle
  • Bamboo is now generated in Jungles and more densely in the new Bamboo Jungle biome
• New Achievements
  • Plethora of Cats – Befriend twenty stray cats (20G)
  • Kill the Beast! – Defeat a Ravager (30G)
  • Buy Low, Sell High – Trade for the best possible price (50G)
  • Disenchanted – Use a Grindstone to get experience from an enchanted item (20G)
  • We’re being attacked – Trigger a Pillager Raid (20G)
  • Sound the Alarm! – Ring the bell with a hostile enemy in the village (20G)
  • I’ve got a bad feeling about this – Kill a Pillager Captain (20G)
• Roaming Skin Choice
  • When choosing a skin from a skin pack, the selected skin will now be selected automatically on other Bedrock devices using the same account
  • Some skin packs may not be eligible for roaming selection
• Accessibility Features
  • Text to Speech can now be enabled to read in-game chat
  • UI Screen Reader can be enabled to say the name of interface controls and their current state
  • Accessibility features can be enabled in Settings

CHANGES

• Note on World Generation: In order to deliver the coolest generated villages possible, some world seeds may have villages generate in different areas than they used to before this update
• A fresh new batch of seeds are now available in the Seed Picker when creating a new world
• Added even more new textures to blocks and items, including stained glass
• Increased the amount of scaffolding that can be placed out from its initial support
• Changes to the way cats spawn in villages:
  • Cats now respawn based on number of beds in the village
  • The number of cats = 1/4 the number of beds
  • Cat total caps at 10 cats per village
• Lecterns now emit a redstone signal when turning pages
• Darkened portions of the game’s menus to provide stronger contrast for accessibility

FIXES

• Crashes/Performance
  • Improved the performance when opening the player inventory with the crafting recipes open (MCPE-41772, MCPE-41166, MCPE-27167)
  • Fixed several crashes that could occur during gameplay
  • Fixed a crash that occurred when using invalid characters on signs (MCPE-41671)
  • Fixed a crash that could occur when enabling Texel Anti-Aliasing
  • Fixed a crash that could occur when spawning a Vile Spider from the MINECON Add-On pack
  • Fixed a crash that could occur on Bedrock Dedicated Server
  • Using pick block on a nether portal no longer causes the game to crash (MCPE-41735)
  • Giving the player a cobblestone wall variant no longer crashes the game (MCPE-41657)
  • Fixed a crash that could occur when selecting Save & Quit on Nintendo Switch
  • Fixed a crash that could occur when signing in or out of Xbox Live on Xbox One
  • Fixed a crash that could occur when resuming gameplay while connected to a server
  • Fixed a crash that could occur when replacing a world with an unsynced world
• General
  • Windows 10 players with Minecraft installed on a different drive no longer get an error message saying that they are out of storage space, unless they are truly out of space (MCPE-32501)
  • The Treasure Hunter Achievement can now be unlocked when using a treasure map in the off-hand slot (MCPE-33382)
  • Global resource packs will now stay applied if you revisit the settings screen after restarting the game, then restarting the game
  • Disabling the Multiplayer Game setting will now apply when the world is packaged as a world template
  • Players on Xbox are no longer prompted to sign into Xbox Live if they have already done so
  • Made further improvements to world saving, to prevent worlds becoming disappearing from the world list
  • Players can view skin selection menu when offline on Nintendo Switch without receiving the internet connection message
  • Nintendo Switch payers can now select the Super Mario skins from the expanded skin pack list while in game
  • Fixed an issue with renewing Realms on Windows 10 (REALMS-1319)
• Gameplay
  • Players no longer float around beds while sleeping (MCPE-41344)
  • Players can now climb vines and ladders using the jump button again (MCPE-40535)
  • Fixed players falling through blocks at around 65K blocks on the X or Z axes (MCPE-39299)
  • Players using VR Controllers no longer fly after swimming (MCPE-39833)
  • Players can no longer suffocate in the ground while spawning into the world (MCPE-42310)
  • TNT now knocks back healing players
• World Generation
  • Fixed mineshaft generation – no longer generate in a giant cluster and should more closely resemble those found in the Java Edition (MCPE-28485)
  • Mesa Plateau biomes now generate more like those in the Java Edition
• Mobs
  • Villagers will actually follow proper etiquette and close doors behind them (MCPE-41170)
  • Mobs can now path their way through waterlogged blocks, such as seagrass (MCPE-37005)
  • Underwater mobs no longer spawn on land (MCPE-40783)
  • Panda eating animation is now faster. Om nom nom! (MCPE-40743)
  • Shulkers now have a chance to drop more shulker shells when killed with looting  (MCPE-39893)
  • Vindicators no longer become passive when renamed (MCPE-27927)
  • Guardians no longer spawn outside water (MCPE-39941)
  • Pandas no longer roll into dangerous blocks
  • Creepers can now spawn in a 1.8 high space, like under trapdoors (MCPE-24120)
  • Skeletons once again turn before shooting
  • Skeleton horses spawned in from earlier versions can be ridden once again (MCPE-40857)
  • Tamed cats now lay on their sides when sleeping on a bed (MCPE-40726)
  • Mobs now rotate correctly after exiting boats (MCPE-41341)
  • Farmer villagers no longer produce infinite amounts of bread (MCPE-33608)
  • Drowned converted from zombies will now attack players
  • Villagers no longer get stuck on lanterns
  • Reduced the range of drowned attacking the nearest player
• Blocks
  • Fixed particles not appearing while mining blocks
  • Seagrass can no longer delete blocks above it as it grows (MCPE-43617)
  • XP can now be stored for auto smelters using furnaces, blast furnaces, and smokers
  • Coral plants and sea grass now break when a supporting block is removed
  • Smooth and Chiselled Quartz blocks no longer have directional placement (MCPE-39074)
  • Scaffolding placed over the void now supports the player (MCPE-38064)
  • Using Ctrl + Pick block no longer creates a new bed with extra data attached (MCPE-42494)
  • Surrounded leaves are now the correct color
• Items
  • Banners can once again be copied in the crafting grid (MCPE-42534)
  • Fixed some items having invisible bits when placed in item frames (MCPE-42415)
  • Maps once again show underwater terrain differences (MCPE-40740)
  • Smelting stone into smooth stone now gives XP (MCPE-41551)
  • The fishing bobber now floats slightly higher in water (MCPE-32976)
  • Silk touch tools now work correctly right up to their very last use (MCPE-41789)
  • Renamed Firework Stars and Firework Rockets now display their new names
  • Fixed an item duplication issue that involved sticky pistons
  • Leather horse armour is now properly coloured (MCPE-40124)
  • Banners no longer render as wall variants when held (MCPE-41228)
  • Shields held in the off-hand are no longer upside-down (MCPE-41221)
  • Creative players no longer get additional buckets when collecting water or lava (MCPE-37070)
  • Renaming items using an anvil no longer increases the prior work penalty (MCPE-36931)
  • Signs can now be used as fuel in furnaces (MCPE-35740)
  • Chorus fruit now plays the teleport sound after eating it
• User Interface
  • Fixed signs not having a text limit, leading to performance issues (MCPE-42647)
  • Items can now be split if they are spread in a crafting grid on touch devices
  • The on-screen keyboard no longer obscures text entry when writing in a book on Xbox One
  • The outline of the saddle item on the horse inventory screen now matches the new saddle texture
  • Fixed the lack of controller tooltip for interacting with the lectern
  • Global resource reset message now appears if the load screen is taking too long on some devices (MCPE-39045)
  • Ratings button for server consumables now shows ‘Rate this pack!’ instead of the purchase button
• Commands
  • Fixed performance issues when using selectors with commands
  • The ‘replaceitem’ command now takes selector arguments into account when replacing items in the offhand slot
  • Fixed command suggestion icons offset (MCPE-41169)
  • Different cauldron types will no longer overwrite each other in the player’s inventory when using the give command
  • End portal blocks no longer drop as items when destroyed using the ‘setblock’ command (MCPE-42991)
• Add-Ons and Script Engine
  • Fixed pivot point changes to Endermen made with Add-Ons
  • A component group is now correctly removed on second activation of ‘minecraft:damage_sensor’
  • Target selectors are no longer case-specific
  • Scoreboard scores are no longer saved earlier than other information when exiting a world
  • Leash positions now use vanilla positions if not specified in the pack
  • Renamed blocks in resource packs now keep their custom names
  • Fixed baby Zombie Pigman sword scale with Add-Ons

Minecraft: Bedrock Edition is out now for Android, iOS, Nintendo Switch, PC, and Xbox One. A Village and Pillage update specific to the Legacy PlayStation 4 version currently has no release date.

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