Minecraft 26.4 release date: the ice caves drop is due before the end of 2026

Minecraft’s next game drop is going underground, into the ice. Here’s when to expect it and what’s in it so far.

When does Minecraft 26.4 come out?

Mojang hasn’t announced a date, but it has confirmed the timing in broad terms: introducing the testing phase on Sept. 30, it wrote, “The final game drop of 2026 is upon us.” That puts the release before the end of the year, on Java and Bedrock at the same time.

For a sense of the schedule, last year’s final drop, Mounts of Mayhem, came out on Dec. 9, 2025. This year’s drops so far arrived on March 24 (Tiny Takeover), June 16 (Chaos Cubed) and Sept. 15 (Wilderness Bound).

How close is it?

The drop is still in weekly snapshots. Before a release, Java testing moves to pre-releases and release candidates: for 26.3, the first pre-release came on Sept. 1, two weeks before launch, and the first release candidate on Sept. 10. As of Oct. 13, 2026, the latest build is 26.4 Snapshot 4.

Mojang also tends to announce the name and the date shortly before launch. It named Wilderness Bound on Sept. 5 and confirmed the Sept. 15 date on Sept. 10. The 26.4 drop doesn’t have a name yet.

What’s in Minecraft 26.4?

The headline is the ice cave, a new cave biome that generates under the colder biomes of the Overworld, made mostly of packed ice and calcite. Its ceilings are covered in icicles, which grow up to five blocks long, break in light and hurt anything they fall on, and its floors hold glowing ice crystals, similar to amethyst clusters.

The new hostile mob is the Frostbite, a zombie variant that switches between melee hits that apply the new Freezing effect and thrown ice balls. Leather armor protects you from freezing, as it does in powder snow. Snapshot 4 added brittle ice, which cracks and breaks under your feet and covers new crevasses that wind down into the caves, and jukebox playlists: put a chest of music discs on top of a jukebox and it plays them in order.

The first two snapshots were more technical. Snapshot 1, on Sept. 22, made Vulkan the default graphics option on Java, and Snapshot 2, on Sept. 29, redesigned the F3 debug screen and improved how the sky fades into the fog at the edge of render distance.

What about Bedrock?

Every game drop comes out on Java and Bedrock on the same day, but Bedrock uses different version numbers. Wilderness Bound was Java 26.3 and Bedrock 26.50, and the ice caves features are being tested in Bedrock Preview 26.70, released on Oct. 13. You can try them in the Preview on Xbox, Windows and iOS, in the beta on Android or on a free testing Realm with an active Realms subscription.

What came in Minecraft 26.3?

Version 26.3, Wilderness Bound, came out on Sept. 15, 2026. It added the dappled forest with its poplar trees, abandoned camps, new explorer maps, cushions, straw beds and wool and concrete stairs and slabs, along with Realms upgrades such as invite codes and render distance settings.

After the ice caves drop, the biggest addition on the way is the Sift, the first new dimension in over 14 years, which Mojang plans to bring to Java and Bedrock in 2027 and which you can already explore in Minecraft Dungeons II, as our Minecraft Dungeons 2 DLC release date page explains. Minecraft also comes to a new console on Oct. 27, as our Minecraft Switch 2 Edition page explains.

This page is updated as soon as Mojang announces the name or the release date of the Minecraft 26.4 drop.