Minecraft Preview 1.20.40.20: Full Patch Notes Listed

You get a map, you get a map, everyone gets a map!

An image of Minecraft characters and animals with the "Minecraft Preview" logo above them.
Image via Minecraft official website

The Minecraft Preview 1.20.40.20 patch notes contain interesting experimental changes to the steadfast and ever-growing block-based game. As part of the ongoing Villager Trade Rebalancing, big changes have been made to Cartographers to help players find new biomes more efficiently than ever before. There are also significant changes to Armorer trades in hopes of making them less potent at the start of the game but stronger as the game progresses. But the Minecraft Preview 1.20.40.20 has even more changes than that, all listed below.

Recommended Videos

Full List of Patch Notes for Minecraft Preview 1.20.40.20

Below, you will find the Minecraft Preview 1.20.40.20 patch notes in full.

Experimental Features

These experimental features won’t appear unless you create a new world and, in the Experiments Menu, turn on the Feature Toggle.

Cartographer Trades

Cartographers in Desert Villages will sell: 

  • Savanna Village Map
  • Plains Village Map
  • Jungle Explorer Map

Cartographers in Plains Villages will sell: 

  • Savanna Village Map
  • Taiga Village Map

Cartographers in Savanna Villages will sell: 

  • Desert Village Map
  • Plains Village Map
  • Jungle Explorer Map

Cartographers in Snow Villages will sell: 

  • Plains Village Map
  • Taiga Village Map
  • Swamp Explorer Map

Cartographers in Taiga Villages will sell: 

  • Plains Village Map
  • Snowy Village Map
  • Swamp Explorer Map

Cartographers in Jungle* Villages will sell: 

  • Savanna Village Map
  • Desert Village Map
  • Swamp Explorer Map

Cartographers in Swamp* Villages will sell: 

  • Snowy Village Map
  • Taiga Village Map
  • Jungle Explorer Map

*Because villages don’t normally spawn in jungles and swamps, players have to build a village in these biomes before they can access these Cartographer trades. 

Armorer Trades

  • Buying diamond armor for the Armorer now requires Diamonds in addition to Emeralds.
A table of experimental Armorer trade changes for Minecraft Preview 1.20.40.20.
Image by Minecraft official website

Additional changes include:

  • Most master-level Armorers buy Iron Blocks (and pay very well for them.)
  • Chainmail armor is exclusively sold by the secret Jungle and Swamp Armorers.
  • The Savanna Armorer sells cursed diamond armor at reduced prices.
  • The Taiga Armorer can swap one piece of diamond armor for another.

Structure Loot

Certain Enchanted Books now have a high chance of generating in some structures:

  • Ancient Cities: Mending
  • Mineshafts: Efficiency (I to V)
  • Pillager Outposts: Quick Charge (I to III)
  • Desert Temples: Unbreaking (I to III)
  • Jungle Temples: Unbreaking (I to III)

Features and Bug Fixes

Accessibility

  • Fixed an issue where text to speech did not say how to open chat or emotes.
  • Text-to-speech message for popup title/description is now played properly.

Audio

  • Guardians and Elder Guardians make flopping sounds again when on land.
  • Wither Skeletons now have their own unique sounds.
  • Updated the sound that’s played when Wither Skeleton Skulls are placed on top of Note Blocks.
  • The sound for picking up items is now played when using the ‘/give’ command.
  • Stray Cats now play a sound when begging for food.
  • Changes to Bottles
    • Bottles now emit sounds when filling from Water Blocks.
    • Pouring water or potions from a Glass Bottle into a Cauldron emits the appropriate sound.
    • Filling a Glass Bottle with Water or Potion from a Cauldron now emits the appropriate sound.
    • Drinking from a Glass Bottle now emits the appropriate sound.

Gameplay

  • Sculk Block no longer drops XP when mined with Silk Touch.
  • Zombie Villager curing time is now randomized between 3 and 5 minutes, to match Java Editio.n
  • Fixed an issue where moving slowly on Soul Sand would sometimes cause the player to not receive the Soul Speed movement speed.
  • Players can no longer sometimes clip through blocks when flying in Creative Mode and spamming the sneak button.
  • Players can no longer sometimes clip through blocks when gliding with Elytra into blocks
  • Buckets can no longer pick up liquids for a few ticks after they’ve been placed.
    • This should help make placing and retrieving liquid in a quick succession far more consistent as well as help players that are using a water bucket to quickly avoid fall damage.
  • Falling from a great height while in a Boat no longer deals fall damage.
  • Fall damage is now absorbed by the entity that lands on the ground when mounted and passed on to passengers if the mount dies.

General

  • Diagonal Banner patterns no longer get inverted when applied to a Shield.
  • Updated structure icons on Explorer Maps sold by Cartographers.
  • Chest blocks use state “minecraft:cardinal_direction” instead of “facing_direction”, this state uses string values [“south”, “west”, “north”, and “east”] instead of [0, 1, 2, 3, 5, 6] 
  • Trapped Chest blocks use state “minecraft:cardinal_direction” instead of “facing_direction”, this state uses string values [“south”, “west”, “north”, and “east”] instead of [0, 1, 2, 3, 5, 6]
  • Ender Chest blocks use state “minecraft:cardinal_direction” instead of “facing_direction”, this state uses string values [“south”, “west”, “north”, and “east”] instead of [0, 1, 2, 3, 5, 6]
  • Stonecutter blocks use state “minecraft:cardinal_direction” instead of “facing_direction”, this state uses string values [“south”, “west”, “north”, and “east”] instead of [0, 1, 2, 3, 5, 6]

Graphical

  • Equipped enchanted armor now has an overall weaker glint, however its intensity more noticeably increases and decreases over time.

Mobs

  • Mobs no longer receive fall damage when falling into a 1-block deep water pool.
  • Rabbits can once again eat partially and fully-grown Carrot crops.

Vanilla Parity

  • Sheep that have been sheared previously and have since grown back wool will now drop wool on death.
  • Fox can now pick up items that can be equipped.
  • Closing the inventory of Boat, Raft, or Minecart with Chest now emits vibrations.
  • Cartographers no longer offer exploration maps as a trade item when not in the overworld.
  • Zombified Villagers now have the correct biome overlays.
  • Changed the default value of the Respawn Radius in the Advanced Settings to 10.

User Interface

  • Clicking off the game window will not unselect a friend. This will also not add a new invite for the currently selected friend when the game window is selected once more.
  • Smithing Table no longer shows double overlapping tooltips for some slots.
  • Item names no longer overlaps with the absorption health bar.
  • Item names no longer overlaps with the mount health bar.
  • Item names no longer overlaps with the oxygen bar.
  • Updated Brewing Stand interface to always stay within its background when scaled.
  • Fix a bug where the tooltip for the v-sync setting was showing without being hovered.

Technical Updates

Add-Ons and Script Engine

  • Changed the names of the CameraSetOptions options to not include the word ‘Script’.

Commands

  • Re-entering a world no longer breaks command autocomplete after a command using “@e[type=item]” was used.
  • The /damage command with the “override” cause now causes damage through post hit invulnerability.
  • The recipe command color has been changed to white instead of blue.

Components

  • Added a content error when attempting to load a damage sensor with an invalid “cause” value 
  • Allow single value parsing for “minecraft:icon” item component.
  • The Camel mob Dash Component can now be applied to rideable mobs other than Horse, Donkey, and Mule using “minecraft:dash”

Molang

  • Molang updated to version 1.20.40 which replaces “block_property” and “has_block_property” with “block_state” and “has_block_state”
    • This is a Molang Versioned Change that only takes effect for Molang expressions in packs that use a min_engine_version of 1.20.40 or higher.

Trade Tables

  • Trade items now have a “filters” property to determine if a trade should be considered. 
  • Trade items no longer support the “biome” property to check villager biome types, the “is_mark_variant” filter can be used in the “filters” property instead to check the villager biome type.

Related: Best Minecraft Updates of All Time (2023)

Experimental Technical Updates

Script API

  • Added the chat(message: string) method
  • Changed get to return ItemType | undefined
  • Changed source on ItemDefinitionTriggeredAfterEvent to be optional
  • Added the following methods to Player
    • above(steps?: number): Block | undefined;
    • below(steps?: number): Block | undefined;
    • north(steps?: number): Block | undefined;
    • east(steps?: number): Block | undefined;
    • south(steps?: number): Block | undefined;
    • west(steps?: number): Block | undefined;
    • offset(offset: Vector3): Block | undefined;
    • center(): Vector3;
    • bottomCenter(): Vector3;
    • Made getItemStack function return ItemStack or undefined.
  • BlockStates
    • Made get function return BlockStateType or undefined.
  • Updated ExplosionAfterEvent and ExplosionBeforeEvent
    • getUpdatedBlocks() will now return Block[]
    • setUpdatesBlocks(blocks: Block[]) now takes in a Block[]
  • Added the following methods to Player playMusic(trackId: string, musicOptions?: MusicOptions): void; queueMusic(trackId: string, musicOptions?: MusicOptions): void; stopMusic(): void;
  • Dynamic Properties
    • Property registration is no longer required and propertyRegistryhas been removed from the worldInitialize event.
    • Removed limits on the count and size of properties that can set on an entity or the world.
    • Default values have been removed. getProperty will now always return undefined for unset properties.
    • String dynamic property values are now restricted to a length of 32767 bytes.
  • Dynamic Properties
    • Removed function removeDynamicProperty – Please use setDynamicProperty with a value of undefined to remove a property.
    • Added function getDynamicPropertyIds – Returns an array of all dynamic property ids on an entity/world used by the behavior pack.
    • Added function getDynamicPropertyTotalByteCount – Returns the total number of bytes used by all dynamic properties on an entity/world by the behavior pack.
    • Added function clearDynamicProperties – Removes all dynamic properties added by this behavior pack from an entity/world.
  • Dynamic Properties
    • Dynamic property numbers are now stored with double precision (64 bits)
  • Adding PlayerInteractWithBlock + PlayerInteractWithEntity before & after events.
  • Adding PlayerDimensionChangeBeforeEvent and PlayerDimensionChangeAfterEvent in beta. 

Graphical

  • Soul Torches are now treated as point lights in the Deferred Technical Preview. 
  • Allow data-driving of point lights and their colors for any block via resource packs in the Deferred Technical Preview.

Stability and Performance

  • Improved chunk rendering performance in Deferred Technical Preview. 

User Interface

  • Fixed a bug where “PBR” was not included in HUD while in level using Deferred Technical Preview.

Those are all of the Minecraft Patch notes for the Minecraft preview 1.20.40.20 update. While you’re here, check out how to upgrade your Minecraft Bedrock realm.

About the Author

Niki Fakhoori

Niki’s love for video games encompasses a wide range of genres, but she is especially fond of RPGs, adventure games, visual novels, simulation games, and fighting games. Her favorite video game-related pastime is asking her unwieldy backlog why she doesn’t have any new games to play. When she isn’t playing or writing about video games, she’s playing with cats, journaling, painting, or obsessing over the latest news in the world of stationery and planners.