Minecraft Java Edition 26.4 Snapshot 6 came out on October 27, 2026. It adds Snow Bricks with a slab, stairs and a wall, and a Cold archetype for the Sulfur Cube, which turns the water below it into Frosted Ice as it moves. To play it, turn on snapshots in the Minecraft Launcher, and back up your world first: snapshots are test builds that can damage it.
Snow Bricks and their variants
Four Snow Blocks in a 2×2 square make four Snow Bricks, and the bricks make the rest of the set:
| Block |
At a crafting table |
| Snow Bricks |
4 Snow Blocks → 4 |
| Snow Brick Slab |
3 bricks in a row → 6 |
| Snow Brick Stairs |
6 bricks → 4 |
| Snow Brick Wall |
6 bricks in two rows → 6 |
Unlike the Packed Ice Bricks of Snapshot 5, the slab, stairs and wall can't be cut on a Stonecutter: the crafting table is the only way. Snow Bricks drop themselves only when mined with a shovel. Like the Packed Ice Bricks, they give the Sulfur Cube its Fast Sliding archetype.
The game doesn't translate the four new names yet: they show in English in every language until a later build.
The Cold Sulfur Cube
A Sulfur Cube takes on an archetype from the block it absorbs, and Snapshot 6 adds a Cold one, in the special category, which it gets from a Blue Ice block. It slides like the Fast Sliding archetype, and it also floats: when it moves, it turns the water below it into a disk of Frosted Ice, as boots with Frost Walker do. The block above the water must be air, and the cube must start its move on the ground.
Other changes
- The game now translates the Packed Ice Bricks set, Chiseled Packed Ice and the What Goes Around Comes Around advancement, which Snapshot 5 left in English.
- Every Packed Ice Brick variant now needs a pickaxe to drop itself.
- Brittle Ice no longer cracks under a Stray.
- Ice Crystals now make ambient sounds when Packed Ice is below them.
- Mobs falling through lava may take slightly less fall damage.
- Java now sets its own memory: up to 25% of your RAM, 4 GB at most.
Mojang also fixed 41 bugs, among them Brittle Ice that mobs could still crack with the mob_griefing game rule off, and zombie villagers that spawned with the plains look in ice caves instead of the snowy one.
On Bedrock
Bedrock Edition 26.60, the regular game, came out on October 27 with the ice caves drop as an experiment: turn on Drop 4 of 2026 in a new world's settings to explore ice caves, Ice Crystals, Icicles and Frostbites without Minecraft Preview. Brittle Ice and the Packed Ice Bricks, which the Preview already has, aren't in it yet, nor this week's Snow Bricks.
How to try it
- Open the Minecraft Launcher and go to Installations.
- Tick Snapshots, then play the Latest snapshot installation.
- Use a copy of your world, or a new one: a world opened in a snapshot may not load in the release afterwards.
Everything else the drop adds so far, from the Frostbite to Brittle Ice and its release date estimate, is in our ice caves guide. Mojang's full notes are in our Minecraft changelogs.
