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Different colored sheep, a wandering trader, and a cartographer in a snowy biome
News
Linn Viberg
Written By
Linn Viberg
Published
2/12/25

Test new ways of exploring

Find the right wool, buy new maps, and hear the buzzing of fireflies!

Explorers, gather round! Minecraft’s first game drop of 2025 has more features for you to test – and these ones make exploring more rewarding! You can now find sheep herded into biomes by color, buy new maps from cartographers, strike better deals with wandering traders, and hear firefly bushes buzz. Oh, and you can also find bundles in village chests and camels spawning across the desert! 

What are you waiting for? These features are available for testing in Bedrock beta/preview now and coming to Java snapshot soon! Let’s go!

Sheep spawning

Group of sheep

Know what color sheep to find in which biomes!

sheep on pasture

Most brown sheep spawn in sandy biomes, black sheep in chilly biomes, and white sheep in green biomes.

sheep in pen
sheep grazing

As somebody who takes rug designs very seriously, I have spent far too many Minecraft days frantically sprinting across biomes to find that one specific color wool for my builds. But those days are almost gone! Our developers have kindly herded most sheep into biomes based on their color. Now you’ll find most brown sheep in sandy biomes, black sheep in chilly biomes, and white sheep in green biomes. I believe that the developers tried to herd the rest too, but kept falling asleep counting them – so sheep of other colors are still on the loose and spawn all across the Overworld!

New maps for cartographers

POV holding a map

Cartographers now sell seven more maps!

POV of inventory
pic of two persons near sheep

Now that you know where the sheep spawn, we thought we’d make it easier to find your way there, too! Instead of hoping to stumble upon a certain biome or village, you can now buy maps from cartographers which will lead to them. Cartographers can be found in villages and they each sell their own selection of maps. That means the more village types you explore, the more maps you will find!

Updates to the wandering traders

pic of wanderer speaking to person

The wandering traders now have lower prices and more inventory

Speaking of trading, you can now strike some new deals with wandering traders! These llama-leading wanderers visit your base occasionally, offering to trade items for emeralds. They are now changing their business strategy: not only selling and buying more things, but at lower prices too! From firefly bushes to Potion of Invisibility, find out what bargains the wandering trader has on offer next time they stop by. 

Ambient sounds for the firefly bush

Should you purchase a firefly bush or stumble upon one yourself, listen out for a pleasant humming. It will be the new ambient sound coming from the dancing firefly particles! The firefly bush went into testing a few weeks ago and the way it glitters in the night has already added so much atmosphere to the Overworld – and now we get even cozier! Mmmmmmmmmmmm. 

How can I test these features? 

You can test these features by enabling snapshots for Minecraft: Java Edition, or by enabling previews/beta* for Minecraft: Bedrock Edition. To install a snapshot, open up the Minecraft Launcher and enable snapshots in the "Installations" tab. To enable preview/beta for Minecraft: Bedrock Edition follow these instructions.  

*Preview is available for Minecraft: Bedrock Edition Realms on Xbox, Windows 10/11, and iOS. Betas are available on Android (Google Play). 

Send us your feedback! 

These features are all still in development, which means that the details outlined above might change as we iterate on them. So then why have we released them into testing? Because we want your feedback! Send your thoughts here, and report bugs at bugs.mojang.com!

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