Mojang released Minecraft 26.4 Java snapshot 4 and Bedrock preview 26.70.20 on October 14, adding a Brittle Ice block to the Ice Caves biome and a playlist feature for Jukeboxes, according to PCGamesN. The builds belong to testing for the year's fourth game drop, which PCGamesN said had been in testing for a couple of weeks.
How Brittle Ice works
Brittle Ice is found in the Ice Caves biome. It cracks whenever a player or mob stands on it, with the new Frostbite Zombie the only exception. Each of its three cracking stages takes 1.2 seconds, and the block breaks completely after the third. Standing no more than a quarter of a block above it also triggers the cracking, so carpets, cushions or layers of snow placed on top can hide it as a trap.
Stepping off stops the cracking, but the block never repairs itself, and when one block breaks, any adjacent Brittle Ice advances one stage. Unlike Frosted Ice, it does not melt near light sources and leaves no water behind when it breaks. It can be collected with a Silk Touch pickaxe and generates when flowing water passes a Blue Ice block.
Jukebox playlists and other changes
Placing a Chest on top of a Jukebox and filling it with Music Discs now makes the Jukebox play them in the order they are laid out, swapping in the next disc when a track ends or when a disc is ejected by hand. The build has no manual skip button, and PCGamesN reported that players had already started building their own with minecarts.
The patch notes also make Zombies, Drowned and Husks immune to the Freezing status effect. Drowned caught in Powdered Snow now turn into a regular Zombie and then into a Frostbite, and Frosted Ice blocks cause a vibration event when they change state through melting.
Both test builds are available by selecting the matching game version in the Minecraft launcher.
