Java Edition exclusive features

This is the list of features that are available exclusively to the Java Edition. Bear in mind some of the exclusives features may be added to the Bedrock Edition eventually.

General

Advancements

Uses the advancement system instead of the achievement system.
Can be used to gain experience.

Minecraft Launcher

Uses a special Minecraft Launcher
Able to load the user's skin on the launcher.
This Launcher is able to play previous editions of Minecraft all the way back to 2009 (That is if you download the old launcher due to a lack of sound support in the new launcher)
Able to load up custom versions of Minecraft such as Optifine, and Forge.

Blocking

A gameplay mechanic which allows players to block attacks.

Combat

The “attack strength” combat mechanic.
- A meter shows up after switching items or attacking.
  - Damage done depends on the fullness of the meter, with a quadratic reduction (attack does 20%–100% of normal damage as the meter fills).
  - Fills at different rates depending on the new attack speed attribute (see table on the changes to gameplay section for a complete list).
    - The haste effect will cause the meter to fill faster
  - Can be displayed next to the hotbar (left or right based on the player's main hand), under the crosshair or turned off.
    - Looks like the icon for the strength effect on the side of the hotbar, or like a dagger under the crosshair.
    - This is controlled in video settings.
- A cooldown animation is displayed of the tool slowly being lifted up, when first switching to it.
Play sounds when attacked strongly, weakly, and parried.

Debug screen

It shows the chunk cache, the memory usage, various parameters, the player's map coordinates and a graph that measures the game's current frame rate.

Functions

Functions allow players to run lists of commands using text files with the extension .mcfunction.

Hardcore mode

In this gamemode, the world is locked to hard difficulty and the player has only one life.

Trading

All trades from naturally-generated villagers reward XP orbs.

Screenshot

Screenshots are images taken in-game by pressing the (by default) F2 key or Fn + F2 for Macs and some other keyboards.

Official Server software

Server software from Mojang.
Allow players to play online or via a local area network with other people.
- Can be customized by editing the server.properties

Spectator mode

A game mode which allows the player to fly around and observe the world without interacting with it in any way.
Spectator mode can be entered by using the command /gamemode spectator, or dying in hardcore mode or using F3 + N while in Creative mode.

Statistics

A game feature that allows players to track how many times they have completed certain tasks.

Subtitles

A feature which display text for sounds in game.

Tutorial hints

They are meant to guide newer players who may not know the controls.

Breaking

The range of breaking blocks is 5 blocks in Creative mode, and 4.5 blocks otherwise.
When the player is in range, the block will also be marked with a black wireframe cube outline.

Brewing

By placing one or more bottles in the lower three slots of the brewing interface, an ingredient in the upper slot, and blaze powder in the fuel slot, you can distill the ingredient into each bottle and brew potions which may be consumed to grant an effect to the player.
The Potion of Luck cannot be brewed, and can only be obtained by commands such as /give @p minecraft:potion 1 0 {Potion:luck}, or through the creative inventory.

Light

Lighting has three settings: minimum, maximum, or off, and can be changed by accessing Video options from the Options menu.

Recipes

To save space, some recipes in the recipe book are grouped together and can be selected by pressing the right button on the mouse.

Enchanted Books

The player can enchant any item with any enchantment in creative mode, allowing any applied effects to exhibit themselves.

Health

For players, a "You died!" screen (or "Game over!" in Hardcore mode) appears that displays the player's score.
Death messages are broadcast to everyone upon the death of a player, and to the pet's owner on the death of a pet wolf, cat, or parrot.
- Death message: [player] fell from a high place.

Caused by a fall greater than 5 blocks.

Particles

The types of particles and their technical names are displayed below. Particle names in italics are shown when using the "Minimal" particles setting.

Particle name	Block/entity/event	Image
barrier	Barriers
damageIndicator	Mobs when hurt by a player's melee attack	File:Particle damageIndicator.png
depthsuspend	Not in use
footstep	Not in use
magicCrit	Sword or axe enchanted with Sharpness, Smite, or Bane of Arthropods	File:Particle magicCrit.png
spit	Llamas attacking a player or mob
suspended	Underwater	File:Particle suspended.png
sweepAttack	Swords	File:Particle sweepAttack.png
take	Supposed to show a pickup animation in 1.8 but was bugged and is now removed in 1.8+	N/A

Damage

When the player is in third person while suffocating, the view will automatically switch to first person.
The player will usually die from falling in the void, even in creative mode.

Others

Status effect

Summary of effects

ID	Name	Effect
23	Saturation	Restores hunger and saturation
24	Glowing	Outlines entities (can be seen through blocks)
26	Luck	Increases chances of high-quality loot
27	Bad Luck	Reduces chances of high-quality loot

Piston

Cannot push (or pull) certain blocks (those with block entities):
- anvil
- beacon
- chest
- conduit
- daylight sensor
- dispenser
- dropper
- hopper
- note block
- trapped chest
Sticky pistons drop blocks when a single redstone tick pulse occurs, rather than retracting them.
Redstone wire runs next to pistons instead of curving into them.
Support quasi-connectivity.

Dispensers and Droppers

Support quasi-connectivity.

Note Block

Some blocks have different sound placed below Note Blocks.

Block material	Instrument	Sound names
block of gold	Bell	block.note.bell
clay	Flute	block.note.flute
packed ice	Chime	block.note.chime
wool	Guitar	block.note.guitar
bone block	Xylophone	block.note.xylophone

Crafting

Stone Slabs

Can use stone only, no variants.

Redstone repeater

Can use stone only, no variants.

Redstone comparator

Can use stone only, no variants.

Dyes

Leather armor can be dyed by crafting dyes with a piece of leather armor.

Drops

Witch

Witches have an 8.5% chance to drop the potion they're drinking.

Elder Guardian

0-1 Cooked fish if killed by fire.
- Raw fish common drop is cooked if it died while on fire.

Guardian

Raw fish common drop is cooked if it died while on fire.

Illusioner

Drops a Bow.

Vex

Sword is not enchanted.

Vindicator

Axe is not enchanted.

Wither Skeleton

8.5% chance of dropping their stone sword, which will have a random durabillity, and will be always non-enchanted.

Enchantment

Curse of Binding

The cursed item cannot be removed from any armor slot (outside of Creative mode) unless the player dies or the item breaks.

Curse of Vanishing

When the player dies, the item disappears instead of dropping on the ground. The item may still be dropped normally.

Sweeping Edge

Increases sweeping attack damage.

Silk Touch

Using a Silk Touch shovel couldn't drop the item form of Grass Path.

Commands

/advancement

Gives, removes, or checks player advancements.

/ban

Adds player to banlist.

/ban-ip

Adds IP address to banlist.

/banlist

Displays banlist

/data

Modifies the data tag of a block or entity.

/debug

Starts or stops a debugging session.

/defaultgamemode

Sets the default game mode.

/function

Runs a function

/kick

Kicks a player off a server.

/pardon

Removes entries from the banlist.

/particle

Creates particles.

/publish

Opens single-player world to local network.

/recipe

Gives or takes player recipes.

/reload

Reloads loot tables, advancements, and functions from disk.

/save-all

Saves the server to disk.

/save-off

Disables automatic server saves.

/save-on

Enables automatic server saves.

/scoreboard

Manages objectives, players, teams, and tags.

/seed

Displays the world seed.

/setidletimeout

Sets the time before idle players are kicked.

/stop

Stops a server.

/tellraw

Displays a JSON message to players.

/trigger

Sets a trigger to be activated.

/whitelist

Manages server whitelist.

/worldborder

Manages the world border.

Scoreboard

A complex gameplay mechanic utilized through commands.
Mainly intended for mapmakers and server operators, scoreboards are used to track, set, and list the scores of entities in a myriad of different ways.

Target selector

Owns a type of target selector arguments which is selecting targets by experience level.

[level=L] – Selects only targets with experience levels in range of L (1.. is 1 or more, ..1 is 1 or less, 1..3 is between 1 and 3 (inclusive), and 1 is exactly 1).

This automatically filters out all non-player targets.

Data Tag

Data tags are used in commands to specify complex data for players, entities, and some blocks.

`/xp`

The maximum XP that you can earn from the /xp command is 2,147,483,647 levels.

Block/items name

The identifiers are namespaced and all have the "minecraft:" prefix.

World Generation

Debug Mode world type

A world type used to test block states, block models, and textures.

Large Biomes world type

A world type which has its biome scale set to 6.

Buffet world type

A world type which consists of only a single biome. There is also an option to choose between Overworld, Floating Islands or Caves.

World boundary

By default, a customizable World border will appear to prevent players passing through.

Spawn chunk

Chunks found in the world spawn point which are not unloaded from the memory, unlike normal chunks.

Superflat

Superflat worlds also allow the player to access the End, which generates as in a normal world, by finding a stronghold or by creating an end portal in Creative Mode.

Stronghold

They generate in rings with the strongholds evenly spaced around the circle until the total of 128 is reached.

The 1st ring has 3 strongholds within 1408–2688 of the origin
The 2nd ring has 6 strongholds within 4480–5760 of the origin
The 3rd ring has 10 strongholds within 7552–8832 of the origin
The 4th ring has 15 strongholds within 10624–11904 of the origin
The 5th ring has 21 strongholds within 13696–14976 of the origin
The 6th ring has 28 strongholds within 16768–18048 of the origin
The 7th ring has 36 strongholds within 19840–21120 of the origin
The 8th ring has 9 strongholds within 22912–24192 of the origin

End Stone

The 16 end stone blocks under the edge of the exit portal are replaced when the dragon is respawned, and again when it is killed. As dragons are also renewable, this does make end stone renewable.

Village

Tables consist solely of Oak Pressure Plates.

Igloo

If you smelt a number of items in the igloo furnace, light generated by it will melt the igloo window, turning the ice into a water source block.

Blocks and Items

Barrier

An invisible block that appears transparent.

Blaze Powder

Blaze powder is required as fuel for a brewing stand, lasting for up to 20 brewing operations.

Bow

Bow can be used as fuel, smelting 1.5 items per bow

Bone Meal

White bed can be crafted using white bed and bone meal.
Has a 5% chance of being dropped by any kind of fish.

Button

Wooden buttons can be used as a fuel in furnaces, smelting 0.5 items per button.

Carpet

Carpet can be used as a fuel in furnaces, smelting 0.335 items per carpet square.

Chest

Bonus chest will always contain the same items.
The top three rows for a large chest correspond to the western or northern half and the bottom three to the southern or eastern half.
Holding ⇧ Shift and double-clicking while holding an item will move all items of the type clicked on in or out of the chest, to the extent that space is available for them.
A chest can be "locked" by setting its Lock tag using the /data command. If a chest's Lock tag is not blank, the chest cannot be opened except by players holding an item with the same name as the Lock tag's text. For example, to lock a chest at (0,64,0) so that only players holding an item named "Player's Key" can open the chest, use /data merge block 0 64 0 {Lock:"Player's Key"}.
On December 24-26, chests, large chests and trapped chests have their textures changed to "Christmas chests" which look like wrapped Christmas presents.

Cobwebs

Paintings can be placed on their sides.
Jumping will vibrate the player akin to jumping in a 2-block-high space.
Primed TNT can pass through cobwebs without slowing down if shot through fast enough.

Door

Wooden doors can be used as a fuel in furnaces, smelting 1 item per door.

Dispenser

Dispensers will equip a pumpkin on a player, mob or armor stand with an empty helmet slot, within the block the dispenser is facing.

Farmland

Transparency: Partial (Blocks light)
Mobs smaller than 0.512 cubic block cannot destroy farmland. This includes parrots, rabbits, chickens, bats, ocelots, wolves, cave spiders, endermites, silverfish, baby mobs, small slimes, and small magma cubes.

Fire

When lit, netherrack and magma blocks will maintain fire forever, unless put out by lava, water or the player.
Dead Bush can be set on fire, the opposite for sign.

Fish

Raw fish can be used to tame ocelots, get cats off of chests, beds, etc., breed cats, and make baby cats grow up faster by 10% of the remaining time. Raw salmon, clownfish and pufferfish will also work.

Fishing Rod

A fishing rod can be used as fuel in furnaces, smelting 1.5 items per fishing rod.

Flower Pot

The plant can be removed from the flower pot by pressing the use control.

Furnace

The lit furnace block cannot be obtained, even with commands.
Fuel last differently, see Furnace/table.

Jukebox

Tamed parrots dance when near a jukebox that's playing a disc.

Knowledge Book

A utility item that reveal crafting recipes to the player when used.

Ladder

A ladder can be used as fuel in furnaces, smelting 1.5 items per ladder.

Lingering potion

What makes it a lingering potion as opposed to a splash potion is that their Potion tag stores a minecraft:lingering_potion item.

Magma Block

Due to a bug, it can "preserve" higher light levels in some circumstances even after the original light source is removed, until reloaded.

Monster Spawner

When obtained as an item and placed, it will spawn pigs by default.

Shields

A tool used for protecting the player against attacks.

Slab

Wooden slabs can be used as a fuel in furnaces, smelting 0.75 items per slab.

Sword

A vex wields an iron sword which normally has a 0% chance of dropping, because their main hand's HandDropChances is 0.
- However, this chance increases by 1 percentage point per level of Looting. It is never damaged or enchanted.

Spawn Egg

Skeleton egg will not spawn wither skeletons in the Nether.
The horse egg will not spawn donkeys.
Each spawn eggs has a different id.

Map

The name for "Empty Locator Map" (requires compass) in Java Edition is called "Empty Map", which is different from the "Empty Map" that uses no compass in Bedrock Edition.

Name Tag

Naming a vindicator "Johnny" will cause it to be aggressive with all mobs (except other illagers).

Redstone Comparator

If the solid block is powered to signal strength 15 the comparator will output 15 no matter the fullness of the container.
Couldn't lock redstone repeaters.

Sign

The combination Ctrl + pick block can be used to copy an already-placed sign and place it down again with the same text shown as the original.
Signs can be used as a fuel in furnaces, smelting 1 item per sign.

Wool

Wool can be used as fuel in furnaces, smelting 0.5 items per wool block.

Mobs & Entities

Item (entity)

Items take damage from fire, lava, falling anvils.

Arrows

Arrows can get visually stuck in players.
Includes Arrow of Luck
Includes Spectral Arrows, imbues the Glowing status effect for 10 seconds.

Boat

Doesn't need a shovel to be crafted.
A boat can be exited by pressing the ⇧ Left Shift key.
Boats are controlled using the forward, left (turns left), right (turns right), and backwards keys. Using the sprint key will increase the field of vision, but will not increase speed as if sprinting.

Creeper

The detection range of creepers is reduced to half of their normal range (8 blocks) when the player is wearing a creeper mob head.

Skeleton

The detection range of skeletons is reduced to half of their normal range (8 blocks) when the player is wearing a skeleton mob head.
Skeletons holding tipped arrows in their offhand will shoot that type of arrow; these arrows are not consumed.

Enderman

When under the Invisibility effect, the enderman's body will disappear, but its eyes will still be visible.
Endermen cannot normally be attacked with projectiles (including splash potions of harming), as they will always teleport away just before being hit.
- However, they will not teleport if positive potions are thrown at them, including splash potions of regeneration and strength, and will not teleport away from poison potions either.
  - If all available blocks within teleport distance are removed or unable to be transported to, it is possible to hit endermen with a projectile, though arrows tend to bounce off dealing no damage on occasion.
The ender pearl should drop as soon as the enderman dies, but the experience orbs only appear when the enderman's body disappears.
- It's possible to slay an enderman, pick up the pearl at the point where the enderman received the killing blow, and find the experience in the location the enderman teleported to.
There are some blocks that enderman can pick up:
- Allium
- Azure Bluet
- Blue Orchid
- Dandelion
- Orange Tulip
- Red Tulip
- Pink Tulip
- White Tulip
- Oxeye Daisy
- Poppy
- Cactus
- Pumpkin
- Melon
- Mushroom

Illusioner

An unused hostile mobs.
One of the three illagers.

Killer Bunny

A Hostile Bunny based on the movie Monty Python and the Holy Grail.
Will attack players
Can only be summoned via commands

Giant

A giant sized Zombie
Has no AI in recent updates.
Can only be summoned via commands

Minecart with Furnace

A self-propelling minecarts with furnaces inside.

Minecart with Spawner

A combination of minecarts and monster spawners.
Can only be obtained via commands.

Squid

Squids can drown in lava, but not for other mobs.

Zombie

Zombies will automatically hold any item they come across (except that jack o'lanterns).
Zombies can spawn naturally with Jack o'Lantern
On Halloween, zombies, zombie villagers and husks spawn only with pumpkins and jack o'lanterns.
On Halloween, if a zombie wearing a pumpkin or jack o'lantern is killed using a weapon enchanted with Looting, there will be a chance equivalent to the level of Looting used to drop the pumpkin or jack o'lantern, up to a maximum of a 3% chance of a drop.
The detection range of zombies is reduced to half of their normal range (20 blocks) when the player is wearing a zombie mob head.

Zombie Pigman

Non-hostile zombie pigmen will not prevent a player from sleeping in a bed.