The Minecraft Chaos Cubed update launched on June 16, 2026 as Java Edition 26.2 and Bedrock Edition 26.30. It is the second of three planned game drops for 2026 and adds the sulfur caves biome, the sulfur cube mob, two complete new block sets, geysers, six new music tracks, the Bounce music disc, a new advancement, multiplayer improvements for both editions, and a range of technical changes. This guide covers every single feature added in the update.
- Released June 16, 2026 — Java Edition 26.2 and Bedrock Edition 26.30.
- The headline addition is the sulfur caves, a new underground cave biome.
- The new mob is the sulfur cube — a passive mob with 12 physics archetypes.
- Two full new block sets: sulfur (yellow) and cinnabar (red), 14 variants each.
- New functional block: potent sulfur, which creates noxious gas and geysers.
- Cave spiders now spawn naturally in the wild for the first time ever.
- Six new music tracks and one new collectible music disc added.
- Java gets an experimental Vulkan renderer and a Friends List.
- Bedrock gets Parties fully released and a new Realms Hub.
New Biome — Sulfur Caves
The sulfur caves is a new underground cave biome added in Chaos Cubed. It generates at the same depth as lush caves and dripstone caves but is smaller in size and more fragmented. The biome generates inside hills and mountains, avoiding ocean floors and high mountain peaks. Sulfur caves are more common under flat terrain near swamps and deserts.
The biome is visually unmistakable: its walls are made of bright yellow sulfur blocks and deep red cinnabar blocks, with sulfur spike formations growing from ceilings and floors in stalactite and stalagmite shapes. Sulfur pools filled with potent sulfur sit across the cave floors, emitting noxious gas. The biome emits a faint greenish tint from the gas-laden water.
Two new mobs spawn here: the sulfur cube (exclusive to this biome) and cave spiders, which now spawn naturally in the wild for the first time in Minecraft history — previously they only appeared from spawners. Standard hostile mobs including zombies, skeletons, and creepers also spawn in the dark areas of the biome. For tips on exploring it safely, see the sulfur caves survival guide. To find one, see the sulfur caves location guide or the best sulfur caves seeds.
New Surface Structure — Sulfur Spring
Sulfur springs are new surface structures that generate directly above sulfur cave biomes. They act as a visual marker on the surface, always indicating a sulfur cave below. Dig straight down beneath any sulfur spring to reach the cave.
Springs are built from sulfur, potent sulfur, magma blocks, and a small water pool. Noxious gas bubbles up from the water, and geysers may form in larger springs where magma blocks sit below the potent sulfur. Springs come in four size variants: small, medium, large, and extra-large. For the full guide on spotting and using them, see how to find sulfur springs in Minecraft.
New Mob — Sulfur Cube
The sulfur cube is the headline mob of Chaos Cubed and one of the most mechanically complex mobs ever added to the game. It is a passive mob that spawns like a hostile mob — it uses the hostile mob cap and despawns when no player is nearby. It has 8 hearts of health on Java and 9 hearts on Bedrock.
Sulfur cubes move by jumping, similar to slimes and magma cubes. When you interact with one while holding a block, it absorbs the block and enters a new physics state. Once a block is absorbed, the cube becomes immune to fall damage, player attacks, projectiles, and explosions. It can still die from lava. Use shears to remove the block safely. Use an empty bucket to pick up a large sulfur cube and transport it.
Killing a large sulfur cube splits it into two small cubes. Small cubes can be fed slimeballs to grow into large ones after 20 minutes. Feed a small cube a golden dandelion to permanently stop its growth. For the full farm setup, see the sulfur cube farm guide and the sulfur cube duplication guide.
Dispensers can now equip and swap blocks inside a sulfur cube, shear it to remove a block, and release a sulfur cube from a bucket of sulfur cube. This enables full redstone automation of sulfur cube minigames and contraptions.
All 12 Sulfur Cube Archetypes
Each absorbed block puts the sulfur cube into one of 12 archetypes that change its speed, bounciness, ground friction, air drag, and whether it floats in water. Here is a summary of all 12:
- Regular — medium speed and bounce, buoyant. Triggered by dirt and mud blocks.
- Bouncy — fast speed, high bounce, buoyant. Triggered by wood blocks.
- Slow Bouncy — slow speed, high bounce, sinks. Triggered by stone and mineral blocks including cinnabar and sulfur.
- Fast Flat — fast speed, low bounce, sinks. Triggered by organic blocks like sponge, coral, pumpkin, and froglights.
- Slow Flat — slow speed, low bounce, sinks. Triggered by metal blocks including iron, gold, copper, and netherite.
- Light — slow speed, high bounce, high air drag, buoyant. Triggered by all 16 wool colors.
- Fast Sliding — fast speed, no bounce, low friction, sinks. Triggered by blue ice, packed ice, and snow block.
- Slow Sliding — slow speed, no bounce, low friction, sinks. Triggered by mushroom blocks, mycelium, and shroomlight.
- High Resistance — very slow, high friction, low bounce. Triggered by soul sand and soul soil.
- Sticky — extremely high friction, no bounce. Triggered by honeycomb block.
- Explosive — similar to Regular. Triggered by TNT. The TNT can be primed by redstone, fire, or nearby explosions. Six-second fuse when primed by fire or redstone. On explosion, no small cubes spawn.
- Hot — same as Regular but deals contact damage to nearby entities. Triggered by magma block.
For the complete list of every block that triggers each archetype, see the full block absorption guide. For the full mob overview, see the sulfur cube guide.
New Blocks — Sulfur Set (14 Variants)
Sulfur is a bright yellow stone-type block that generates on the walls and floors of sulfur caves. It requires a pickaxe to mine and comes with a full building set. All variants can be made at a crafting table or stonecutter, with the stonecutter being more efficient for stairs and walls.
- Sulfur block, slab, stairs, wall
- Polished sulfur, polished sulfur slab, polished sulfur stairs, polished sulfur wall
- Sulfur bricks, sulfur brick slab, sulfur brick stairs, sulfur brick wall
- Chiseled sulfur (stonecutter only)
See the full sulfur blocks and variants guide for all crafting recipes and stonecutter details.
New Blocks — Cinnabar Set (14 Variants)
Cinnabar is a deep red stone-type block that generates alongside sulfur in the caves. It fills a long-missing gap in the game’s red block palette — brighter and cleaner than nether bricks, less orange than terracotta. Same hardness and blast resistance as sulfur. Also requires a pickaxe. Full building set mirrors sulfur exactly.
- Cinnabar block, slab, stairs, wall
- Polished cinnabar, polished cinnabar slab, polished cinnabar stairs, polished cinnabar wall
- Cinnabar bricks, cinnabar brick slab, cinnabar brick stairs, cinnabar brick wall
- Chiseled cinnabar (stonecutter only)
See the full cinnabar guide for all variants, crafting recipes, and build uses.
New Block — Potent Sulfur
Potent sulfur is a functional variant of sulfur that generates naturally at the bottoms of sulfur pools and springs. It can also be crafted from 9 sulfur blocks in a 3×3 crafting grid.
When placed underwater, it emits bubbles rising up to 4 water source blocks above it and generates a noxious gas cloud on the water surface. The gas spreads across adjacent water up to 3 blocks in radius. Any player or mob entering gas-affected water receives the Nausea status effect. The gas can rise through non-collidable waterlogged blocks and spread through non-collidable blocks.
When placed above a magma block under 1 to 4 water source blocks, it creates a geyser that erupts every 50 seconds. Each eruption shoots a water plume upward and applies an upward impulse to entities above it for 4 to 5 seconds. The height of the launch is roughly 7 blocks per water block stacked above the potent sulfur. A lava source beneath instead of a magma block makes the geyser erupt continuously. Geyser eruptions emit game events detectable by sculk sensors, opening redstone possibilities.
New Block — Sulfur Spike
Sulfur spikes are new crystalline formations that grow on sulfur blocks inside the cave. They form stalactites on ceilings and stalagmites on floors. Unlike pointed dripstone, walking on floor sulfur spikes does not deal damage. Ceiling spikes can fall and deal damage when they do. Stalactites and stalagmites can merge at their tips if close enough, unless placed while crouching. Thrown tridents break sulfur spikes. Four sulfur spikes can be crafted back into one sulfur block.
New Items
- Bucket of Sulfur Cube — fill with an empty bucket on a large sulfur cube. Stores the cube including any absorbed block. Cube can be released by right-clicking. Tooltip shows the absorbed block name.
- Music Disc — Bounce — a new disc by composer fingerspit (Paula Ruiz). Found in minecart with chest loot inside mineshafts that generate within the sulfur caves biome. Drop chance is approximately 42%. Plays a chillwave track 3 minutes 55 seconds long. Jukebox comparator output: signal strength 8. See the Bounce disc location guide.
- Sulfur Cube Spawn Egg — spawns a sulfur cube. Available in Creative Mode.
New Music — Six Tracks by fingerspit
Chaos Cubed adds six new background music tracks, all composed by fingerspit (Paula Ruiz):
- Bounce — the collectible disc track. Chillwave genre.
- Memories — plays in deserts, badlands, and the main menu.
- Ebb — plays in lush caves and the main menu.
- Home — plays in cherry groves and the main menu.
- Shores — plays in beaches and the main menu.
- Nightly — plays in jungles and the main menu.
The five background tracks also play in Creative Mode. None of them are obtainable as physical disc items — only Bounce has a disc. All six tracks play in the main menu alongside existing music.
New Advancement — Uh Oh
One new advancement was added in Java Edition 26.2. It is called Uh Oh, with the in-game description “Have a Sulfur Cube absorb a TNT block.” Feed a large sulfur cube a TNT block to unlock it. This triggers the Explosive archetype. Be careful — do not ignite the TNT once it is absorbed.
New Death Message
A new death message was added for the Hot archetype sulfur cube: “[player] died because not just the floor is lava.” This appears when a player is killed by contact damage from a sulfur cube that has absorbed a magma block.
Multiplayer Changes — Java Edition Friends List
Java Edition 26.2 adds a new Friends List accessible from a dedicated Friends button on the title screen and pause menu. It can also be opened with the keybind O. The Friends List shows which friends are online, in a world, or offline. Players can send, accept, decline, and cancel friend requests by profile name. Toast notifications appear in-game when a request is sent, received, or accepted. The Friends List is opt-in and managed from the Friends List section in Online Options.
Multiplayer Changes — Bedrock Edition Parties
Bedrock Edition 26.30 fully releases the Parties feature that was introduced experimentally in Bedrock 26.20. Parties let you group up to 15 players who automatically follow the party leader between worlds, Realms, and servers. The party has its own text chat channel that works outside of worlds. Privacy settings are Invite Only or Open. For the full how-to, see the parties guide for Bedrock.
Java Edition Technical Additions — Experimental Vulkan Renderer
Java Edition 26.2 adds an experimental Vulkan 1.2 renderer as an opt-in option. This is a significant backend shift away from the existing OpenGL renderer. The Vulkan renderer is not yet the default and is intended for testing on dedicated graphics cards on modern PCs. Performance improvements over OpenGL are expected as the renderer matures in future updates. Players can enable it from the video settings menu. Minimum Java version requirement is now Java SE 25.
New Entity Attributes
Four new entity attributes were added in Java 26.2. These are technical additions that affect how entities — including sulfur cubes — interact with physics:
- minecraft:air_drag_modifier — controls how much drag applies to an entity while airborne. Default 1.0, range 0.0 to 2048.0.
- minecraft:bounciness — controls what portion of velocity is restituted after a collision. Default 0.0, range 0.0 to 1.0.
- minecraft:friction_modifier — controls how much ground friction is applied based on the block beneath. Default 1.0, range 0.0 to 2048.0.
- minecraft:name_tag_distance — controls how far a nameplate is visible. Default 64.0 blocks, range 0.0 to 512.0.
- minecraft:below_name_distance — controls how far a scoreboard below-name display is visible. Default 10.0 blocks.
These attributes unlock new possibilities for custom mob behavior in data packs and add-ons. The bounciness and friction attributes in particular are used directly by the sulfur cube archetype system.
New Game Event
minecraft:bounce is a new game event emitted when an entity with non-zero bounciness collides with a block or collidable entity. It has a vibration frequency of 2, meaning sculk sensors can detect sulfur cube bounces and trigger redstone circuits when a cube makes contact with surfaces. This opens up possibilities for automated pinball machines, scoring systems, and other contraption designs.
New /unpublish Command (Java Only)
A new command /unpublish was added to Java Edition. It unpublishes a player’s integrated server (open to LAN session) if one is active. This gives server hosts a clean way to close a LAN session without quitting the world entirely.
Other Changes and Fixes
Several existing systems were adjusted alongside the new additions:
- Dispensers can now equip blocks into sulfur cubes, shear them, and deploy them from buckets via redstone — opening full automation of sulfur cube minigames.
- Volumetric fog now keyframes with time of day on Java Edition for smoother visual transitions.
- The End now applies boss fog while the ender dragon is alive, improving visual atmosphere during the boss fight.
- Vibrant Visuals received several rendering fixes on both editions.
- Bedrock arrow parity — skeletons, strays, bogged, and parched now shoot arrows at the same rate as Java Edition, using difficulty-based attack intervals instead of distance-scaled intervals.
- Sulfur Cave seed template added to Bedrock world creation for quick access to a world with a sulfur cave near spawn.
What Is Coming Next After Chaos Cubed
Chaos Cubed is the second of three planned game drops for 2026. The first was Tiny Takeover (Java 26.1, March 24, 2026), which added new baby mob variants and small mob content. The third drop for 2026 has been teased by Mojang and involves a major surface biome addition called the Dappled Forest, which introduces poplar trees and an autumnal aesthetic for overworld exploration. No release date has been confirmed for the third drop as of June 2026.
For everything you need to explore Chaos Cubed content, start with the sulfur caves guide and the sulfur cube guide. For block building, see the sulfur blocks list and the cinnabar guide. For the best worlds to start in, see the best sulfur cave seeds. For multiplayer, see the Bedrock parties guide and the Realms setup guide.
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