Minecraft Snapshot 25w15a Patch Notes Review

New Features

Dried Ghast Block

There’s a new dried ghast block you can find in Nether Fossil structures in the Nether or make yourself by sticking eight ghast tears around a bone block on the crafting table. Soak it in water, and it’ll go through three stages over about 20 minutes, giving off noises and particle effects depending on where it’s at, until it spawns a Ghastling mob. If you break it while it’s wet, it dries right back out no matter how far along it was, and if you pull it out of water, it’ll slowly revert to dry over the same amount of time.

Ghastling

The Ghastling is like a baby Happy Ghast that pops out of a dried ghast block after it’s been soaked for around 20 minutes straight. Once it’s out, it’ll follow a player holding a snowball or any grown-up land-based passive mob (plus some neutral ones) if they’re within 16 blocks; otherwise, it just hangs out within 32 blocks of where it spawned or last got messed with. Move it more than 16 blocks past that zone, and it picks a new spot to call home.

Happy Ghast

The Happy Ghast is a flying ride that can carry up to four players, growing from a Ghastling after about 20 minutes (or faster if you feed it snowballs). Slap a Harness on it, and up to four players can hop on—it loves snowballs and Harnesses, though the Harness trick only works if it’s not already geared up. It heals slowly on its own, faster in rain, snow, or at cloud level, and the first player to climb on takes the reins up front just above its face, with its goggles dropping down to show it’s ready to steer.

Other players pile on clockwise around it, and you hit the crouch button to jump off if you’re on top; if it’s got players on it, it freezes and points in the nearest straight direction, harness or not. The third-person camera pulls back when you’re riding, and with no players aboard, the goggles go up, and it wanders around its home spot.

Harness

The Harness is a new item to let you ride a Happy Ghast, made with three leather, two glass blocks, and a wool block—the color matches whatever wool you toss in.

Player Locator Bar

Turn on the player locator bar, and a new display pops up above the experience bar, pointing you toward waypoints like other players or your team’s markers.

Advancements

Stay Hydrated: Unlock it by dropping a Dried Ghast block in water

Heart Transplanter: Get it by slotting a Creaking Heart between two Pale Oak Logs just right

New Commands

“/waypoint” command: Lets you set, clear, or zip to waypoints

Changes

• Third-person camera now zooms out more when you’re watching or riding Ghasts, Ender Dragons, or Giants
• Wolves, sheep, and pigs got their legs flipped to mirror each other
• Spectators tag along when entities jump dimensions but stop watching them after
• Desert ambient sounds got a little tweak in their rules
• Sand sounds don’t need open sky anymore to play
• Sand sounds are a bit less likely to kick in now
• Terracotta blocks won’t set off sand sounds anymore
• Short and Tall Dry Grass can trigger wind sounds if they’re over two blocks of Sand, Red Sand, or Terracotta
• Dead Bush sounds are slightly more likely to pop up

Developer’s Note

The GUI rendering code’s getting a big overhaul in this Snapshot run. What’s in here now isn’t the final version—they’re still working on it.

How to download Minecraft Snapshot 25w15a?

Here’s how Java Edition players can grab the latest snapshot:

• Fire up the Minecraft Launcher
• Go to the “Installation” tab and tick the “Snapshots” box under Versions
• Switch back to the “Play” tab, find the drop-down next to the Play button
• Pick “Latest Snapshot 25w15a” from the list
• Hit “Play” and let it download the files
• Once it’s done, you’re ready to mess around with Happy Ghasts on Java Edition

You can also poke around in the Installation tab, find the Snapshot, and hit “Edit” to tweak stuff like resolution or bump up the RAM by messing with the JVM settings. That’s more for advanced players who want to push things, though.