What is the Minecraft Winter Drop? The next huge Minecraft update is coming to the vanilla game soon and features a new biome and mob. The Pale Garden and The Creaking come to vanilla Minecraft with the first ever Winter Drop, and here’s everything we know so far.
Annual Minecraft updates have been announced during the Minecraft Live livestream for the last few years, but Mojang revealed in late 2024 that there will now be more regular, smaller updates spread throughout the year. The Minecraft Bundles of Bravery update arrived in October 2024, with the larger Winter Drop set to follow in the coming months. Here’s what’s coming to the sandbox game in the next Minecraft update and beyond.
Minecraft Winter Drop release date window
The Garden Awakens on Tuesday, December 3, 2024. The new Minecraft Winter Drop release date brings new content including Eyeblossoms and The Creaking.
Having played some of the most recent Minecraft snapshots featuring The Pale Garden, we can’t wait for the new content to be available in the full game as this incredible new dynamic biome is a game changer. Read on for more details on the new additions.
Winter Drop features
The Pale Garden
Quiet during the day, this spooky and eerie new biome turns more terrifying after dark. This is the first dynamic Minecraft biome so far, as hanging vines turn into a more tangled hanging moss, visibility levels and sounds change, and the overall appearance of the overworld changes when you are in The Pale Garden.
The Creaking
The Creaking is the new mob that creeps up on you after dark in The Pale Garden. The Creaking is a wooden, tree-ent-like creature that’s a little more tough to defeat than the Minecraft mobs you’re used to.
This mob takes no normal damage, so hit it all you like, but it won’t do much. Instead, you need to seek out its heart in a nearby tree. Thankfully, that’s not too hard when you do hit the creature, as it directs you towards it’s heart – seems a bit self-destructive to us.
This kind of adorable Minecraft mob comes after you when you aren’t looking at it, so be careful when you look away to destroy the Creaking Heart – or when you’re running away in fear.
The Creaking Heart
The Creaking Heart is a new block which can be picked up with a silk touch tool and kills The Creaking when broken. When picked up with Silk Touch, you can place the heart down elsewhere to bring the creepy aura of The Pale Garden to a new location.
If you want to spawn a new Creaking, place its heart between two pale Oak blocks and wait for darkness to fall, and your new friend appears.
New blocks and more
The Pale Oak is yet another new wood type – but you can never have too much wood in the building game. This is a white oak, so is going to make an amazing new set of building blocks.
There is also a new set of moss with a toned down palette to the more vibrant moss we already know. This moss looks more grey and slightly dead as it appears in the Pale Garden after dark.
The biggest new block addition, though, is Resin, which is hard to obtain, but is another interesting looking block family to add to your orange and white builds. Alongside the addition of resin, we also got fascinating new eyeblossoms, a strange plant that grows in the Pale Garden.
With that, you’re ready to jump into the new Minecraft update with snapshots and prepare yourself for the full release. Ready yourself for the survival game‘s latest hostile mob with the best armor and weapons, and gather some Minecraft diamond and Netherite to kit yourself out.