Minecraft 26.4 Snapshot 3: Ice Caves, Frostbite, Freezing

Ice caves just landed in Minecraft Java. 26.4 Snapshot 3, released on October 6, 2026, is the first look at the next game drop, and it’s frosty: a new cave biome, icicles, ice crystals, a new hostile mob and a new mob effect. I loaded the snapshot, found a naturally generated ice cave and recorded everything in it.

The Ice Caves biome

The Ice Cave is a new cave biome that generates under the colder biomes in the Overworld. It is mostly packed ice and calcite. Icicles hang from the ceiling, large icicles made of packed ice grow from the ground and the ceiling, patches of snow lie on the floor, and ores sit in pockets of stone and deepslate. Glow lichen does not generate here. Besides the usual cave mobs, strays and Frostbites spawn in ice caves.

Icicles

Icicles are a new speleothem, like dripstone and sulfur spikes, and you find them all over the ceiling of ice caves. They grow up to five blocks long when they point down, but only where there is no light source nearby and outside the Nether. Pointed icicles break when a light source is nearby. A falling icicle damages entities, and landing on one deals extra damage. You can place icicles in any direction.

Ice crystals

Ice crystals are a crystal block similar to amethyst clusters. They glow, you can place them in any direction, and they break if their support block is removed. In ice caves they occasionally generate on the ground.

The Frostbite

The Frostbite is a zombie variant that spawns in cold and icy biomes. It switches between melee and ranged combat depending on how far away its target is and whether it has ice balls: melee attacks apply Freezing, ranged attacks throw ice balls. It can stand on top of powder snow, it is immune to freezing and is not slowed by the Freezing effect or powder snow. Underwater it eventually turns into a zombie, and zombies and husks inside powder snow turn into Frostbites. It drops rotten flesh and ice balls.

The Freezing effect

Freezing makes players shake and slowly freeze, as if they were in powder snow, and eventually deals damage. Leather armor protects from the freezing, just like with powder snow, but it does not keep the effect from being applied and does not remove it. Mobs take additional damage from Freezing, and mobs that are vulnerable to freezing take five times as much.

Ice balls, potions and arrows of freezing

The ice ball is the Frostbite’s projectile. It deals 4 damage, less at lower speed, has knockback and breaks on impact. Ice balls brew into potions, splash potions and lingering potions of freezing. Arrows of freezing are crafted from a lingering potion of freezing in the middle of the crafting table, surrounded by eight arrows.

Smaller changes

• Snow can now be placed on packed ice.
• Snowballs now knock players back.
• The friends list has a new design with search and sorting, Social Interactions became the new Other Players screen, and there is a new Player Options screen.

How to play the snapshot

Open the Minecraft Launcher, go to the Installations tab and turn on snapshots, then pick 26.4 Snapshot 3. Snapshots can corrupt worlds, so back up your worlds first or play in a separate folder.