How to download the week's final Minecraft 1.19 pre-release 3

By all accounts, the Minecraft 1.19 update is right around the corner. Unfortunately, there's no official release date just yet. A recent official trailer showed the Allay and its new features but ended with a title card that read "Coming Soon." However, that might be sooner than players expect.

The update was originally slapped with a vague "2022" release date, which could have been any time. Mojang recently switched from releasing betas and snapshots to pre-releases, which signifies that they're getting close.

The third and final pre-release of the week has been released, which is a good sign for those anxiously awaiting the 1.19 update. Here's how to download it and what to expect.

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What's in the latest Minecraft pre-release, and how to download it

This is how Mojang says to download the pre-releases, which are unfortunately exclusive to Java Edition:

"Pre-releases are available for Minecraft: Java Edition. To install the pre-release, open up the Minecraft Launcher and enable snapshots in the 'Installations' tab."

That means that on the computer it is downloaded on, players have to open the launcher and enable snapshots, which is also what they needed to do to get the snapshots when they were being released.

Pre-releases have essentially taken the place of the snapshots, so crafters who were using snapshots will be able to seamlessly move into the pre-releases.

Unfortunately, Minecraft Bedrock users will have to be patient as they're not releasing any more betas at the moment.

Here are a few changes that this pre-release introduces:

• Sculk sensors will no longer only sense the last turtle egg being broken when stepped on by a player or mob.
• Sculk sensors will activate for a bee leaving or entering its hive.
• Frogs won't prioritize eating enemies and will instead panic when they are damaged.
• Allays won't get stuck and freeze inside non-solid blocks.
• If a player drops an item, sculk sensors sense it and alert shriekers.
• Allays don't flee or panic when taking damage.

The only major change was given to the Warden's sonic boom attack. It's an incredibly powerful ranged attack that can kill a fully Netherite clad player in two hits. The Warden uses it when it cannot immediately melee attack a player it's angry at.

There's no protection for it, either. It will go through blocks and can reach some heights, so players will probably be damaged by it. Thanks to the pre-release, they aren't able to alleviate any of that.

The sonic boom attack is now impervious to Protection enchantments. Protection IV is useless against the attack now, making the Warden even more dangerous.

Sonic boom (Image via Viper76PL on YouTube)

There is, however, one thing that Mojang did not fix in this Minecraft pre-release or the previous one:

"Important to note is that a recent change made it possible for more types of mobs to spawn inside Nether Portals, which caused them to instantly change dimensions after spawning."

They added:

"We will not be making any further changes to this before the release of 1.19, but our intent for the future is to prevent most mobs from spawning in Nether Portals, and the ones that do will not immediately travel through the portal. Expect to see these changes in a coming version."

For more information, visit Mojang's official site.