All New Features In Minecraft’s Spring To Life Update

Minecraft continues to be updated each year, and 2025 marks the start of a change to how updates are done. There will now be two Minecraft Live shows per year, and future updates will be known as game drops. These will be smaller batches of new features which are released more frequently.

With the first batch of features for the year, the Spring To Life update, now available, we take a look at everything included in this free update, and what we can expect throughout the rest of 2025.

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New Cow Variants

There are now two new variants of cow: cold cow and warm cow. The cold cow is a light brown cow based on the Highland cow, and has small straight horns and a furry-looking coat. They spawn naturally in cold areas, including taigas, windswept biomes. You can also spawn them with an egg in cold oceans, anywhere with snow and ice, the deep dark, and the end.

The warm cow is a deeper brown and has curved horns and markings around its hooves. It spawns naturally in jungles, savannas, and badlands. A spawn egg can be used to add warm cows to deserts, warm oceans, mangrove swamps, and the nether.

Spawn eggs have textures which are a caricature of the mob they spawn to make identification easier.

The current cow model has been slightly refined to match the new pronounced nose style of the new cow models and is now known as the temperate cow. It spawns anywhere else you may naturally find cows, including plains, forests and regular swamps.

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New Pig Variants

Pigs have also undergone a transformation and now have new variants for cold and warm weather. The existing model is unchanged and spawns in temperate areas such as plains, forests, and cherry groves.

Cold pigs are a light brown and cream speckled design, and are found in the same cold biomes as cold cows. Warm pigs are a dark brown colour and, as expected, spawn in warm biomes.

All pig variants behave the same way and have the same drops as existing pigs. They can also all be ridden with a saddle and a carrot on a stick.

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New Chicken Variants

Chickens have also been given a cold and warm variant. The existing white chicken is now a temperate chicken, and will spawn alongside its temperate pig and cow companions in plains, forests and swamps.

If adult pigs, chickens or cows of different variants are bred, the baby will be determined by random chance and will mimic one of the parents.

Cold chickens are black and have a rooster-style spikey mane on their heads. They spawn in the colder biomes, namely taiga and windswept areas. Warm chickens are a cream and orangey colour and spawn in naturally warm biomes like junlges, savannahs and badlands.

All chicken variants come with a jockey version ridden by a baby zombie. Changing biomes won’t save you from this notoriously annoying version of the adorable chicken.

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New Rules For Sheep Spawns

There are no new sheep variants but the most common sheep colour will change, depending on your biome. Currently, white sheep are the most commonly found, with black, grey, light grey and brown being uncommon. This remains the same in all temperate biomes.

Pink sheep remain as rare spawns anywhere sheep naturally spawn. All sheep will also now display their wool colour on their undercoat after being sheared – a change already present in Bedrock Edition.

In cold biomes, black will become the most common sheep, with white becoming uncommon and the rest remaining the same as usual. For warm biomes brown becomes the common colour with black, white, light gray and gray all uncommon.

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Leaf Litter

Leaf litter is a new decorative block which works in a similar way to pink petals. You can have up to four leaf litter pieces in one space, controllable by repeatedly placing them. They will appear in different orientations to create a random and more natural-looking pattern.

These blocks are found in forests, dark forests, and wooded badlands or crafted by smelting leaf blocks. They can be mined with any tool or washed away with water. The tint of the leaf litter will match the leaf colour of the biome you are in, and they even cunch underfoot.

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Wildflowers And Cactus Flowers

Wildflowers are new small decorative flowers which can be placed in small patches on one block. They comprise a patch of orange, yellow and pale blue flowers which can be placed up to four times on the same block, and they break down into yellow dye.

You’ll find them naturally in birch forests and meadows and can collect them instantly with any item or your hand. When you break them you will receive however many were on that block, up to four. Wildflowers can be duplicated with bonemeal and can also be generated when using bonemeal on grass in birch forests.

Both flower types can also be used to lure or breed bees and can be pollinated. However, there is a chance that bees pollinating cactus flowers can be pricked and die.

Cactus flowers can be found in deserts, and badlands biomes. There is a 25 percent chance of a cactus three blocks high having a flower spawn on them naturally. This is reduced to a ten percent change for one or two-block-tall cactus. Like wildflowers, cactus flowers can be mined instantly by hand or with any tool.

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New Bushes And Grass

In plains, windswept biomes, rivers, and forests, you can now find a new bush. These instantly broken additions add depth to the areas they spawn in and are tinted to match the grass in each biome.

In deserts and badlands you’ll see short and long dry grass. This can be eaten by sheep, bone mealed or put into a composter, just the same as regular grass.

When traveling at night, keep an eye out for the glow of the firefly bush. It generates in swamps and near rivers, emitting fireflies with a light level of two up to five blocks away when the area is at light level 13 or lower. The bushes spawn in clumps of two to five and can be bonemealed and instantly broken.

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Cartographers Offer More Maps

You can now buy seven new maps from cartographers at Apprentice level. Each one points to a different village type, a jungle temple, or witch hut. The selection available will vary depending on the biome of the village you are in.

Trial chamber and ocean monument maps remain at Journeyman level, and colored banners are now sold at expert level. Some prices and quantities of trades have also been adjusted.

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Wandering Traders Are More Useful

Wandering Traders are attempting to save themselves by offering better value prices, more options for trade, and larger quantities of their supplies. They will now buy more basic supplies, and traders will offer emeralds in exchange for two items from this list: water bottles, water buckets, milk buckets, fermented spider eyes, baked potatoes and hay bales.

For those looking to buy rather than sell, all overworld variants of logs, enchanted iron pickaxes, and potions of invisibility have been added to the options you’ll find.

Ambiance is the name of the game in the Spring To Life update and a few other tweaks have also been made to help with this.

Fallen trees can now be seen in oak, spruce, birch and jungle variants and spawn anywhere their standing variants are found with the exception of meadows, rivers, groves, flower forests and bamboo jungles. Some fallen trees can be further decorated with vines and mushrooms, while fallen birch trees come in short and long versions.

Wolves have new sounds to give them more personality, and you may also hear more ambiant sounds in certain biomes as part of a wider overhaul to the game’s immersion level.

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Upcoming Features

While not out yet, these upcoming features are set to be released later in 2025 with more details information expected in the next Minecraft Live.

Vibrant Visuals

Vibrant Visuals is the name of an upcoming graphical upgrade for the game. It appears to work in a similar way to shaders and texture packs, adding reflections, sunlight and other lighting effects which enhance the immersion of your world. Bedrock players can expect to get this towards the end of the year, with Java following afterward.

Ghast Variants

The dried ghast is a new nether block you’ll need to bring back to the overworld to revive. If you rehydrate it then after a few days it will turn into a cute ghastling. This adorable mob is a happy variant of the regular ghast and grows up into a happy ghast.

The happy ghast brings only smiles and a new form of transport. Adding a saddle to one allows up to four players to ride this adorable addition who even comes with its own flying helmet!

Player Locator Bar

The final feature revealed so far is a player locator bar, helping you find your friends more easily in multiplayer worlds.