Mojang Studios released Minecraft 26.4 Snapshot 6 on Tuesday, adding snow bricks, a new Cold Sulfur Cube archetype, and several changes to the game’s technical systems and defaults. The snapshot continues the ice-focused run of 26.4 builds, following earlier additions such as Brittle Ice and jukebox playlists in Snapshot 4.
The headline additions are aimed squarely at builders and players experimenting with the Sulfur Cube family. Snow Bricks can now be crafted from 2×2 Snow Blocks, and the new block set includes slab, stair, and wall variants. Mojang says Snow Bricks belong to the Fast Sliding Sulfur Cube archetype, and that they only drop themselves if mined with a shovel. Unlike some other brick variants, a stonecutter cannot be used to make the Snow Brick slabs, stairs, or walls.
Snapshot 6 also introduces the Cold Sulfur Cube archetype, described by Mojang as a special archetype in the Sulfur Cube family. It behaves like the Fast Sliding archetype, but with an extra icy twist: when it moves, it floats and replaces the water below it with a disk of Frosted Ice, similar to the Frost Walker enchantment. The new behavior has a few limits. Air blocks above the water block are required for Frosted Ice placement, and the cube will only place Frosted Ice if it starts moving while on the ground. Mojang says the archetype is used when a Sulfur Cube absorbs a Blue Ice block.
Snow Bricks expand the ice building set
Snow Bricks arrive as another themed construction block for players building in colder biomes or trying to keep a winter palette consistent across a base. The crafting recipe uses four Snow Blocks arranged in a 2×2 pattern, making the block family straightforward to mass-produce once snow is available. Mojang also added the usual structural variants for building flexibility: slabs, stairs, and walls.
The way Snow Bricks behave is part of the broader logic Mojang has been layering into the 26.4 snapshots. They are not just decorative pieces. Because they are tied to the Fast Sliding Sulfur Cube archetype and only drop themselves when mined with a shovel, they sit alongside the update’s other ice-leaning blocks as part of a more specific material ecosystem rather than a simple retexture.
That approach follows the same direction as the earlier ice additions in this snapshot series, which have gradually filled out a colder set of materials and interactions. For players tracking the update as it grows, Snapshot 6 is another step toward a fuller ice-themed toolkit.
Cold Sulfur Cube adds a frosted movement effect
The new Cold Sulfur Cube archetype is the most unusual feature in the snapshot. Mojang says it belongs to the special archetype category and shares the core properties of the Fast Sliding archetype, but adds a movement effect that leaves Frosted Ice behind. In practice, that means the cube can turn water into a temporary frozen path while moving, provided the placement rules are met.
Those rules are specific. The water block beneath the cube must have air above it, and the cube must begin its movement on solid ground before Frosted Ice is placed. That makes the effect more controlled than a free-form trail and suggests Mojang is trying to keep the behavior readable inside the world rather than letting it trigger everywhere a Sulfur Cube travels.
The special archetype is triggered when the cube absorbs a Blue Ice block, which ties it directly to the update’s broader cold-material chain. Mojang has not framed it as a one-off visual gimmick; instead, it sits inside the Sulfur Cube family with its own data-driven categorization and placement behavior.
Default settings, sound updates, and block tweaks
Snapshot 6 also changes the game’s default JVM options. Minecraft now automatically sets Java heap size based on the system’s RAM, using up to 25% with a maximum of 4 GB. That is a notable technical shift for players who have had to tune memory settings manually, and it arrives alongside other performance and stability changes in the build.
Mojang also adjusted several gameplay details and block interactions:
- All Packed Ice Brick variants now require a pickaxe to be mined in order to drop themselves.
- Brittle Ice will no longer crack when a Stray is standing on top of it.
- Mobs falling through lava may take slightly less fall damage in some cases.
- Ambient sounds were added to Ice Crystals.
- An Ice Crystal block has a chance of playing an ambient sound if it has a block of packed ice below.
Those changes continue a steady refinement of the ice block family introduced in earlier snapshots. The sound addition gives Ice Crystals a little more life in colder builds, while the mining and brittle-ice adjustments bring the block behavior in line with the rest of the growing set of cold-themed mechanics.
Data pack and resource pack changes for creators
Beyond the visible features, Mojang updated the technical versioning for the snapshot. The Data Pack version is now 125.1 and the Resource Pack version is now 101.0. The data pack update adds a new location_based_effects field for Sulfur Cube archetypes, described as an optional list of location-based effects. Mojang says each entry uses the same format as a location-based enchantment effect, and that level-based values in the definition are always evaluated with level 1.
World-generation creators also get new tools. In density functions, the from_coordinate and to_coordinate fields now accept a Vertical Anchor when the axis is y. Mojang also added domain_warp, which samples an input function by applying offsets to sampled coordinates. The company warns that if the offsets change rapidly by a large amount, performance may degrade significantly, so the feature should be used sparingly.
Structure pool elements gained an optional corner_constraint field as well. According to Mojang, it limits placement by sampling a Density Function at the corners of a structure pool element’s bounding box. The field can check all, top, or bottom corners, and creators can set acceptable density ranges, padding, and the number of required corners that must fall inside the range for the check to pass.
Several new tags were also added. Mojang introduced #swimmable for fluids players can swim in, #sulfur_cube_archetype/cold for items that can turn a Sulfur Cube into the Cold Sulfur Cube archetype, and new entity type tags for #swimming and #flying.
On the resource side, Mojang added a new block texture for block/snow_bricks.png, a new sound event called block.ice_crystal.ambient, and removed the block/cube_top block model. The snapshot also fixes a long list of bugs, including issues with underwater camera behavior, inventory crashes in spectator mode, delayed block breaking, brittle ice interactions, and a handful of advancement, UI, and world-generation problems.
The bug fixes cover a wide spread of systems. Among them are corrections for drowned and undead mob conversion tags, the water overlay disappearing in certain underwater camera states, Small Sulfur Cubes despawning after splitting from bucketed cubes, and several interface text inconsistencies around realms, reporting, friendships, and abuse-report drafts. Mojang also fixed bugs involving brittle ice being affected by entities when mob griefing is false, ice caves generating certain blobs twice, jukebox and music-disc behavior, and a world bug where some villager trades still differed from 1.21.11.
With Snow Bricks, a frosted Sulfur Cube variant, and a broad round of technical changes, Snapshot 6 keeps 26.4 focused on cold biomes, icy materials, and the systems underneath them. The update keeps the snapshot cycle moving deeper into the game’s winter set, while leaving builders and data pack authors with a fresh batch of tools to test.
the snow bricks are actually a nice add, especially with slabs and walls right away. what caught me more is the shovel-only drop rule though, because that makes it feel like a real block family and not just another reskin. no stonecutter for the variants is a little annoying, but at least the recipe is dead simple.
fair enough. mud blocks did the same
nah, this is cleaner than mud because it fits the ice theme and the shovel check makes sense. i just wish the Cold Sulfur Cube stuff had a clearer use case outside gimmick builds, because the water-to-frosted-ice thing sounds cool but niche.
i had one frozen pond base with my kids and this update would fit there nice. the ambient ice crystal sound sounds more useful then another shiny block.
25% RAM cap with max 4 GB is the detail i care about. less manual tweaking is good.