The first Minecraft 1.20 ‘Trails & Tales’ pre-release snapshot is here

(Image credit: Xbox Game Studios | Twitter)

What you need to know

• For months, Mojang Studios has been working on the Minecraft 1.20 “Trails & Tales” content update.
• The update will bring new mobs, biomes, blocks, and features to the long-running survival crafting game.
• On Wednesday, the first official pre-release snapshot for the Minecraft 1.20 update was released.
• That means the update is nearing completion, with the team mostly focusing on polish and bug fixes from here on out.

The next major Minecraft content update is never far from many fans’ thoughts, and the 1.20 “Trails & Tales” update is no exception. Fortunately, the update has hit a major milestone in its development journey today. The first pre-release snapshot for Minecraft version 1.20 is now available for Minecraft: Java Edition players.

Minecraft 1.20 Pre-Release 1 is far from the most exciting snapshot in a vacuum, as it only includes a handful of bug fixes and general improvements. This is a good thing, however, as Mojang Studios has brought the upcoming update to feature completion and is now focusing on final polishing and refinement before the public release.

There’s still no official release date for the Minecraft 1.20 “Trails & Tales” update, but we shouldn’t have long to wait now. Major Minecraft updates tend to stay in the “pre-release” stage of snapshot testing for a few weeks before moving to the final “release candidate” stage of last-minute bug fixing. From this point on, we shouldn’t see any new huge feature additions to the update, but this upcoming release is already filled with exciting features.

The 1.20 “Trails & Tales” update will include new mobs like Camels and Sniffers, new features like archaeology and armor trims, new blocks like hanging signs and chiseled bookshelves, and new biomes like the Cherry Grove. Of course, there will also be new song additions to the Minecraft soundtrack. Additionally, the impending update is packed with quality-of-life improvements, bug fixes, and vanilla parity improvements.

If you want to help urge the 1.20 “Trails & Tales” update through the final stages of development, you can test the first pre-release snapshot right now through Minecraft: Java Edition on Windows PC, which is one of the best PC games of all time. Even if you play Minecraft: Bedrock Edition, late-stage previews for the update probably aren’t far behind. Bedrock players also recently got a new patch update with over 40 fixes.