The next Minecraft game drop is the Ice Caves drop, and you can already play it in test versions. Java Edition has it in the 26.4 snapshots since 26.4 Snapshot 3 on 6 October 2026, and Bedrock Edition has it in Preview behind the "Drop 4 of 2026" experiment. The zombie variant that Mojang showed at Minecraft Live as a frozen zombie is called the Frostbite in these builds.
Quick answer: The frozen zombie is the Frostbite, and the drop is now feature complete in testing. Mojang's notes for Java 26.4 Snapshot 7 (3 November 2026) call its additions "the final gameplay features for the upcoming game drop". Next to the Ice Caves, Brittle Ice and the Frostbite, the last two snapshots added Snow Bricks, a Cold Sulfur Cube that freezes water, three calcite block sets and a music disc called "Flurry". There is no release date yet.
Mojang's testing roundup calls it "the final game drop of 2026" and explains the name: "You might know the frozen zombie variant. It was just too cool, so we had to name it." This post follows the official notes up to Java 26.4 Snapshot 7 and Bedrock Preview 26.70.23, both from 3 November 2026. Details can still change before release.
Every feature in the 26.4 snapshots
| Feature | What it does | Java snapshot |
|---|---|---|
| Ice Caves | Cave biome of Packed Ice and Calcite under cold biomes | 26.4 Snapshot 3 (6 October) |
| Ice Crystal | Light-emitting crystal block, the cave's light source | Snapshot 3 |
| Icicle | Hangs from the ceiling, grows in the dark, falls and breaks in light | Snapshot 3 |
| Frostbite | Zombie variant that freezes you in melee and throws Ice Balls | Snapshot 3 |
| Freezing effect, Ice Ball, Potions and Arrows of Freezing | New effect, projectile, potions and tipped arrows | Snapshot 3 |
| Brittle Ice and crevasses | Ice that cracks and breaks under you, over pools of water | 26.4 Snapshot 4 (13 October) |
| Jukebox playlists | A chest of music discs above a jukebox becomes a playlist | Snapshot 4 |
| Packed Ice Bricks | Brick set with slab, stairs, wall and chiseled block | 26.4 Snapshot 5 (20 October) |
| Snow Bricks | Brick set with slab, stairs and wall | 26.4 Snapshot 6 (27 October) |
| Cold Sulfur Cube | A Sulfur Cube holding Blue Ice, turns water into Frosted Ice | Snapshot 6 |
| Calcite block sets | Calcite, Polished Calcite and Polished Calcite Bricks, plus a Calcite Pillar | 26.4 Snapshot 7 (3 November) |
| Music disc "Flurry" | New disc by Hyper Potions, found in igloo basements | Snapshot 7 |
On Bedrock, the drop started in Preview 26.60.29 on 30 September and was completed in 26.70.23 on 3 November.
Ice Caves
The Ice Cave is a new cave biome that generates under the colder biomes of the Overworld. It is built mostly from Packed Ice and Calcite, with Icicles hanging from the ceiling, large icicles of Packed Ice on the floor and ceiling, and occasional patches of snow. Glow Lichen does not grow there, so Ice Crystals are the main light.
Mining is easier than in other caves: ores sit in visible pockets of Stone and Deepslate inside the ice. Besides the usual cave mobs, Strays and Frostbites spawn here.
Ice Crystals and Icicles
Ice Crystals are a crystal block like an Amethyst Cluster. They give off light, can be placed in any direction and break when the block they sit on is removed.
Icicles work like Dripstone and Sulfur Spikes. They grow up to 5 blocks long when pointing down, but only where there is no light nearby and outside the Nether. They damage anything they fall on, and they break when exposed to nearby light, so in the Ice Caves, lighting up the ceiling can drop ice on your head.
Brittle Ice and crevasses
Snapshot 4 added crevasses, cracks in the Ice Cave floor covered with Brittle Ice. Brittle Ice starts to crack once a player or mob steps on it and eventually breaks. Bedrock's preview notes say it breaks after 3 cracks, that there are water pools at the bottom of crevasses, and since 26.70.21 that players can fall through into caves below.
- Frostbites can walk on Brittle Ice without breaking it, and since Snapshot 6 Strays no longer crack it either.
- It only generates naturally in Ice Caves, as part of crevasses, and you need Silk Touch to collect it.
- You can also make it: water that borders a Blue Ice block horizontally turns into Brittle Ice.
The Frostbite
The Frostbite is a zombie variant that spawns in cold and icy biomes, including the Ice Caves. From the Snapshot 3 notes:
- It switches between melee and ranged combat depending on how far away you are and whether it has Ice Balls.
- Melee hits apply Freezing, and at range it throws Ice Balls. It drops Rotten Flesh and Ice Balls.
- It can stand on Powder Snow, is immune to freezing and is not slowed by Freezing or Powder Snow.
- It turns into a normal Zombie after enough time underwater.
- Zombies and Husks that stand in Powder Snow turn into Frostbites. Since Snapshot 4, a Drowned first turns into a Zombie and then into a Frostbite.
Since Snapshot 7, any piece of leather armor stops Zombies and Skeletons from converting into Frostbites or Strays, and Strays now spawn in six frozen and snowy biomes, among them Frozen Ocean, Frozen Peaks and Snowy Slopes.
On Bedrock, Frostbites can pick up spears but do not use the charge attack. Since Preview 26.70.21 they no longer spawn naturally underground outside the Ice Caves.
Freezing, Ice Balls, potions and arrows
The Freezing effect makes players shake and slowly freeze, as if they were standing in Powder Snow, and it eventually deals damage. Leather armor protects you from the freezing itself but does not stop the effect from being applied, and since Snapshot 7 being on fire counters it the same way. Mobs that are vulnerable to freezing take five times the damage while the effect is on them.
Ice Balls are the Frostbite's projectile. They deal a small amount of damage with knockback and break on impact. Java Snapshot 3 lists 4 damage, scaling down with velocity; Bedrock Preview 26.70.21 raised the base damage to 2.
You can brew a Potion of Freezing, plus splash and lingering versions, from Ice Balls. Put a Lingering Potion of Freezing in the middle of a crafting table, surround it with eight arrows, and you get Arrows of Freezing.
Jukebox playlists
Put a single Chest, Trapped Chest or any Copper Chest variant directly on top of a Jukebox, and its music discs become a playlist:
- Discs play in slot order, skipping empty slots and other items, then loop back to the start.
- When a disc finishes, the jukebox swaps it for the next disc in the chest.
- If the chest holds no music discs, the disc in the jukebox plays again.
- Ejecting the current disc skips to the next one.
For a server, that is background music for a spawn, a shop or a bar without any redstone.
Packed Ice Bricks and Snow Bricks
Snapshot 5 added Packed Ice Bricks, crafted from 2x2 Packed Ice, with a slab, stairs, wall and Chiseled Packed Ice. The variants can also be made in a Stonecutter, and since Snapshot 6 they need a pickaxe to drop. On Bedrock the set does not melt, and Preview 26.70.23 lets Packed Ice Bricks and Chiseled Packed Ice conduct redstone signals.
Snapshot 6 added Snow Bricks, crafted from 2x2 Snow Blocks, with a slab, stairs and wall. Unlike Packed Ice Bricks, the variants cannot be made in a Stonecutter, and Snow Bricks only drop themselves when mined with a shovel. Bedrock's notes add that they do not melt.
How a Sulfur Cube with Blue Ice freezes water
Sulfur Cubes are the mob from the Chaos Cubed drop in Java 26.2. Use a block on one and it absorbs it, stops moving on its own and becomes an object you can push. The absorbed block sets its archetype: how fast it goes when hit, how much it bounces and whether it floats. Snapshot 6 adds one for Blue Ice:
- A Sulfur Cube that absorbs a Blue Ice block becomes a Cold Sulfur Cube.
- It moves like the Fast Sliding archetype for icy blocks, but it floats.
- When it moves, it replaces the water below it with a disk of Frosted Ice, similar to the Frost Walker enchantment.
- It only places Frosted Ice if it started moving on the ground, and the water needs air above it.
Calcite blocks and the Flurry disc
Snapshot 7 brings the last building blocks of the drop. Calcite gets a Pillar, Slab, Stairs and Wall. Polished Calcite is crafted from 2x2 Calcite and Polished Calcite Bricks from 2x2 Polished Calcite, each with a slab, stairs and wall, and all of them work in a Stonecutter.
The new music disc is "Flurry" by Hyper Potions. Java's notes put it in Igloo basement chests, Bedrock's notes give it a 30% chance in Igloo chests, and in a jukebox it gives a comparator output of 7.
How to try it
- Java: in the Minecraft Launcher, enable snapshots under Installations and pick the latest 26.4 snapshot. Create a new world, because the Ice Caves only generate in new chunks.
- Bedrock: install Minecraft Preview, which Mojang offers on Xbox, PlayStation, Windows and iOS, and switch on the "Drop 4 of 2026" experiment when you create a world. On Android, it is the beta through Google Play.
Since Snapshot 6 the game sets its own Java heap, up to 25% of your RAM and at most 4 GB. That is a client launch setting, so a dedicated server keeps the memory its own start command gives it. Our guide to allocating more RAM covers both sides.
What this means for your server
Test on a copy, never on the live world. A world opened in a newer version should not go back to an older one, so run snapshots on a separate test server. If you want one next to your live world, Minecraft server hosting on Space-Node comes with NVMe storage, DDoS protection and 9 regions to choose from.
The biome only appears in new chunks. For a long-running world, plan a border expansion or a new resource world when the drop releases, and pregenerate it before you open it up. Our chunk pregeneration guide walks through it.
Lighting near spawns and builds. Icicles fall when lit, and crevasses drop players into water. Warn your community before someone lights a shared cave or builds over Brittle Ice.
Watch Brittle Ice on PvP and griefing servers. Anyone with Blue Ice and a water bucket can make Brittle Ice, which makes for easy traps. Snapshot 6 fixed two bugs here: entities could crack and destroy it with the mob_griefing game rule set to false (MC-312574), and players could crack it inside spawn protection (MC-312576). Check that your claim and protection plugins cover it once the drop ships.
Potions and adventure maps. If your server limits potions or effects, make sure your rules cover Freezing. Snapshot 5 lets mobs break Decorated Pots, Chorus Flowers and speleothem blocks such as Icicles with projectiles in adventure mode, unless mob_griefing is false.
Data packs. Snapshot 6 set the Data Pack version to 125.1 and Snapshot 7 to 126.0, and Snapshot 7 lets the /effect command take mob effect tags. Test custom packs on the newest snapshot.
Wait for plugin and mod updates. Paper, Fabric and NeoForge need new builds for every drop, and plugins and mods follow after that. Our server compatibility check and 26.3 update guide cover the routine, and our version explainer shows where 26.4 fits.
For the rest of Minecraft Live, see our September 2026 recap and our guide to the Sift.
FAQ
What is the frozen zombie in Minecraft called? The Frostbite. It had no name at Minecraft Live; the 26.4 snapshots and Bedrock previews call it the Frostbite.
When does the Ice Caves drop come out? Mojang has not announced a date. Snapshot 7 on 3 November holds the final gameplay features, and Mojang calls it "the final game drop of 2026". For the previous drop, 26.3, the first pre-release came on 1 September, a week after the last snapshot, and the release on 15 September. Last year's final drop, 1.21.11, was released on 9 December 2025.
What does the Cold Sulfur Cube do? It is a Sulfur Cube that has absorbed a Blue Ice block. It floats and turns the water under it into Frosted Ice as it moves, much like Frost Walker.
How do jukebox playlists work? Put a single chest, trapped chest or copper chest directly on top of a jukebox. It plays the music discs in that chest in slot order and loops back to the start.
Do the Ice Caves generate in my existing world? Only in chunks generated after the update, so you need new chunks to find them.
Sources
All opened on 3 November 2026:
- Minecraft Feedback, Java Edition notes: 26.4 Snapshot 3, Snapshot 4, Snapshot 5, Snapshot 6, Snapshot 7, Java Edition 26.2
- Minecraft Feedback, Beta and Preview notes: 26.60.29, 26.70.20, 26.70.21, 26.70.22, 26.70.23
- Minecraft.net: Everything you can test from the upcoming game drop
- Mojang: version manifest (release dates of 26.3, 1.21.11 and the 26.4 snapshots) and the 26.4 Snapshot 6 version file (client JVM arguments)