Minecraft LIVE September 2026: all the announcements
At Minecraft LIVE on Saturday 26 September 2026, Mojang showed off the next game drop: ice caves with a new frozen zombie, without a date yet (expected: Java 26.4, late 2026). On top of that, The Sift, the dimension from Minecraft Dungeons II, is coming to Java and Bedrock next year, and Mojang announced Sound Effects Packs and a creator platform. Also: Dungeons II launches on 29 September, Minecraft arrives on Nintendo Switch 2 on 27 October with Vibrant Visuals, Minecraft Education turns ten, and in 2027 Minecraft World opens with its own hotel at Chessington. Nothing changes on your server today.
The show started at 1 pm Eastern Time (7 pm CEST) and streamed on minecraft.net, YouTube and Twitch. Below you'll find everything in one place, based on Mojang's official recap. Where something comes only from the stream footage, we say so explicitly.
The next game drop brings ice caves and a frozen zombie
The biggest announcement for Minecraft itself is a new cave biome: the ice caves. Mojang puts them in the same line-up as the dripstone, lush and sulfur caves. They're full of ice and calcite and get two new blocks: icicles, which grow from the ceiling, and ice crystals, which grow on the ground and give off a soft light.
A new zombie variant roams those caves: the frozen zombie. It doesn't have a final name yet. If it hits you, you take damage and also get a freezing effect, and some of them throw ice balls. On its own LIVE page, Mojang's tip is to bring your leather boots. According to the Minecraft Wiki, which bases this on the stream footage, brewing an ice ball into an awkward potion gives you a Potion of Freezing. Mojang hasn't mentioned health, damage or spawn rates.
Mojang calls it the next game drop, but hasn't given a date yet. It's expected to be Java 26.4; the Minecraft Wiki lists Bedrock 26.70 and expects the fourth quarter of 2026. The first 26.4 snapshot already came out on 22 September, but without ice caves. So everything above has been announced, not released, and may still change. Game director Agnes Larsson repeated during the show that adventure remains one of the long-term priorities; this drop fits right in.
The Sift becomes the fourth dimension in 2027
The surprise of the evening: The Sift isn't only coming to Minecraft Dungeons II, but also to Minecraft Java and Bedrock next year. It's the first new dimension in more than fourteen years and the fourth alongside the Overworld, the Nether and the End. The stream gave a first look, including one of the mobs that live there; the wiki calls that mob the blub.
That's all we know for now: no version number, no release date and no explanation of how you'll get there in the regular game. If you don't want to wait, you can visit The Sift in Dungeons II from 29 September.
Minecraft Dungeons II launches on 29 September
The sequel to Minecraft Dungeons comes out on Tuesday, on PC (Windows and Steam), Xbox Series X|S, PlayStation 5, Nintendo Switch and Switch 2. The biggest change: instead of separate levels, you play in one connected world, and you can now jump. All over that world, rifts open up that take you to The Sift, with areas like the Meadow and the Carapace. Your opponent is the Illager High Council. It's a separate game; it doesn't change anything for your Minecraft server.
Sound Effects Packs and a creator platform
Sound Effects Packs are coming to the Minecraft Marketplace, the store in the Bedrock version. Just as a texture pack changes how the game looks, these packs change how it sounds. When they'll arrive and what they'll cost isn't known yet.
Jens Bergensten, Chief Creative Officer at Mojang, opened the show with the creator platform. The goal: to lower the bar for making your own Minecraft content, with better tools and systems to create, manage and share that content. It didn't get much more concrete than that; dates, terms and a list of tools were still missing.
Switch 2, ten years of Minecraft Education and a theme park area of its own
- Nintendo Switch 2, 27 October. That's when the dedicated Switch 2 version of Minecraft comes out, with Vibrant Visuals as the default look. Not everywhere, though: among other things, it doesn't work in split-screen or in certain Marketplace worlds. The Super Mario Mash-Up gets an update, and if you already own Minecraft on the original Switch, you get a digital upgrade path. Details on that will follow.
- Minecraft Education turns ten. The official recap leaves it at a congratulations.
- Minecraft World in 2027. Together with Merlin Entertainments, Mojang is opening a Minecraft theme park area at Chessington World of Adventures Resort in London in 2027. It comes with a Minecraft World Hotel with a deep-sea diner and themed rooms, plus Escape the Nether, according to Mojang the first Minecraft roller coaster, running partly indoors and partly outdoors.
- Community challenge Camp Out. Until 1 October at 7 pm CEST, the community is trying to place 50 million straw beds and 200 million cushions together, from the Wilderness Bound drop (out since 15 September; Java 26.3, Bedrock 26.50). At the halfway mark and at the full goal, everyone gets free Character Creator items and a Java skin. You take part via Bedrock.
What this means if you run your own server
In the short term: nothing. The latest release is Java 26.3 (Bedrock 26.52), and none of the announcements are in a release, snapshot or preview yet. Still, there are a few things you can already do now, or are better off leaving for a while.
- Only test snapshots on a copy. Mojang ships a server jar with snapshots too, and 26.4 Snapshot 1 already contains server changes: three new options in
server.properties, includingallowed-connection-ids. If anything is filled in there, players without the right id in their server address won't see your server and can't join either. Mojang itself warns that test versions can damage your world. So make a backup first and never run a snapshot on your main world. - Hold off on pre-generating. Mojang hasn't said whether ice caves will also appear beneath terrain that has already been generated. What we do know is that 26.4 Snapshot 1 makes worlds from before Caves & Cliffs also generate sulfur caves beneath the old chunks when they're upgraded. If you want to expand your world substantially with pre-generation, you're better off doing it after 26.4.
- Plugin servers wait for their software. If you run Paper or Purpur, only update once that software supports 26.4, and your most important plugins do too. A vanilla server can switch over as soon as the release is out.
- Switch 2 players are Bedrock players. If you want them on your Java server, you need Geyser and Floodgate. How console players add a server of their own is explained in How to join a Minecraft server on PS5, Xbox and Switch; whether that works differently on the Switch 2 version isn't known yet.
- The Sift is something for 2027. A new dimension will be one more part of your world to manage and back up, but how that works technically, you'll only see in the first snapshots.
Want to try out 26.4 alongside your regular server later on? You can do that on a second, small plan: our Minecraft servers start at €0.50 per month and can be cancelled monthly. You choose the version in the game panel; how that works is explained in How do I change my server version?. The servers run on our own hardware with NVMe storage in Hengelo, with DDoS protection included.
When you don't need to do anything
Playing with a few friends on a vanilla server and mainly want everything to keep working? Then just skip the snapshots. The ice caves are only expected with the 26.4 release, and until then you're not missing anything on the server side. Snapshots are mainly useful if you make plugins or datapacks, are preparing a new SMP season or are simply curious.
Frequently asked questions
When are ice caves coming to Minecraft?
With the next game drop, Mojang says, but there's no date yet. That's expected to be Java 26.4; the Minecraft Wiki lists Bedrock 26.70 and expects the fourth quarter of 2026. The first 26.4 snapshot from 22 September doesn't include the ice caves yet, so they're expected to show up first in a later snapshot or preview.
What is The Sift in Minecraft?
The Sift is a dimension from Minecraft Dungeons II, which comes out on 29 September 2026. At Minecraft LIVE, Mojang announced that The Sift is also coming to Minecraft Java and Bedrock next year, as the fourth dimension alongside the Overworld, the Nether and the End. The version number and date aren't known yet.
When is Minecraft coming to Nintendo Switch 2?
The dedicated Switch 2 version comes out on 27 October 2026. Vibrant Visuals is on by default there, although among other things it doesn't work in split-screen or in certain Marketplace worlds. If you already own Minecraft on the original Switch, you get a digital upgrade path; Mojang will share more details on that later.
What time was Minecraft LIVE in September 2026?
The show started on Saturday 26 September 2026 at 1 pm Eastern Time (7 pm CEST). It streamed live on minecraft.net, YouTube and Twitch.