Minecraft Bedrock 1.21.90 update patch notes: Vibrant Visuals, happy ghast, saddle improvements, and more

With the version 1.21.90 update, Minecraft Bedrock has received the biggest visual overhaul in the game's history, titled Vibrant Visuals. Alongside this, the summer content drop called Chase the Skies has also arrived as part of the same update.

Minecraft Bedrock 1.21.90 is essentially two updates in one: Chase the Skies and Vibrant Visuals. Chase the Skies introduces Happy Ghasts, the locator bar, a saddle crafting recipe, quality-of-life improvements for leashes, and many more features.

On the other hand, Vibrant Visuals is a cosmetic update that brings realistic lighting effects to Bedrock Edition, similar to shaders in Java Edition.

Let’s dive into the patch notes for Minecraft Bedrock 1.21.90 to discover everything new in this exciting update.

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Minecraft Bedrock 1.21.90 patch notes: All you need to know

Features and Bug Fixes

New block: Dried Ghast

• Can be found in the Nether in Nether Fossil structures
• Can be crafted with 1 Soul Sand Block and 8 Ghast Tears
• When waterlogged it undergoes 3 states over about 20 minutes until it spawns a Ghastling mob
• Makes sounds and shows particles depending on state
• If mined during the waterlogging, it will revert to its “dry” state regardless of what state it has reached during waterlogging
• Will revert states back to its initial “dry” state when it is taken away from being waterlogged, using the same time scale
• Piglins can give Dried Ghast Blocks when bartered with
• Added new achievement "Stay Hydrated!"

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Mobs

Ghastling

Ghastling is a young version of the Happy Ghast mob

• Spawns from a Dried Ghast block that has continuously been waterlogged for about 20 minutes
• After spawning, the Ghastling will try and follow:

1. Players within a 16-block radius or
2. An adult, non-aquatic passive mob (and some neutral mobs) within a 16-block radius

• If no player or suitable mob is close around the Ghastling will idle around within 32 blocks from its home position (where it spawned or was last interacted with)
• Can be tempted and fed using Snowballs
• Will grow up into a Happy Ghast after about 20 minutes (or faster if fed Snowballs)
• Can be summoned using the command: /summon happy_ghast ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ minecraft:spawn_baby

Happy Ghast

The Happy Ghast is a new flying mount that can carry up to four players

• Spawns from a Ghastling after about 20 minutes (or faster if Ghastling is fed Snowballs)
• Can be equipped with a harness and then be mounted by up to 4 players
• Tempted by Snowballs and Harness. Harness tempting only works if the Happy Ghast is unharnessed
• Has no panic behavior when taking damage
• Cannot be bred
• Slowly regenerates health, with regeneration speeding up during rain, snow or when flying at the same height as clouds are rendered
• The first player that mounts the Happy Ghast will control it, sitting in front of the Happy Ghast, just above its face
• When a player mounts, the goggles on the Happy Ghast go down to cover its eyes, indicating that it can now be controlled
• Other players who mount after the pilot is mounted, are placed in slots on each side of the Happy Ghast, starting clockwise from the “pilot” player
• Pressing crouch button dismounts the player on top of the Happy Ghast
• If the Happy Ghast detects players on top of it, it then ceases all movement and aligns to the closest cardinal horizontal direction
• This happens regardless of it having a harness equipped or not
• 3rd person camera is moved back when player is mounted on the Happy Ghast
• When there are no players mounted or walking on the Happy Ghast, the goggles go up and the Happy Ghast starts to roam around the home position
• If players dismount midair, the Happy Ghast will descend towards the ground before it resumes roaming
• Cannot enter Boats
• Idles around within 64 blocks from its home position (where it spawned or last was interacted with)
• If wearing a harness, the Happy Ghast idles closer to the home position (within 32 blocks)
• The Happy Ghast will try to stay close to blocks when roaming on its own

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Items

Harness

Harness is a new item that can be equipped on a Happy Ghast to allow players to ride it

• Crafted out of 3 Leather, 2 Glass Blocks and 1 Wool Block, the Harness will have the same color as the Wool Block used when crafting
• Can be re-dyed
• Can only be equipped on a Happy Ghast
• Allows up to 4 players to mount the Happy Ghast
• Can be removed from the Happy Ghast using Shears but only when no players are mounted

Locator Bar

• The Locator Bar is a new UI element on the Player HUD that displays the direction of other Players in the World
• When there are multiple Players in a World, the Locator Bar will appear on-screen for each Player, replacing the Experience Bar. The Player Level number will still be visible as before above the Locator Bar
• The Locator Bar will display colored indicators when the camera is facing within 120 degrees towards another Player. If another Player is 30 degrees above or below the camera's viewport (the screen) an up or down arrow will be displayed
• Crouching will hide the Player, preventing their indicator from appearing on the Locator Bar of other Players
• Players in Spectator Mode are not visible on the Locator Bar
• A Mob Head or a Carved Pumpkin will similarly hide Players from the Locator Bar when worn in the head slot.
• Using a Potion of Invisibility will also hide players from the Locator Bar

Saddles Updates

• We are making Saddles craftable and generally making it easier to remove them from mobs by using Shears. We have also added Leather to some loot tables instead of Saddles

Crafting Saddles

• Saddles can now be crafted with 3 Leather and 1 Iron Ingot
• Recipe popup happens when a player picks up their first Leather

Loot Table Changes

Some loot tables have had Saddles removed from them and replaced with 1-5 Leather:

• Monster Room chests
• Ancient City chests
• Desert Pyramid chests
• Jungle Pyramid chests
• Stronghold altar chests

Leashing Updates

We are expanding the functionality of leads, to make it possible to leash any leashable entity to another leashable entity and by doing so create chains of leashed entities

• Attaching a leashed entity to another entity and using Shears to cut leashes now take precedence over other interactions
• Example: Attempting to shear a leashed Sheep will now un-leash it instead of shearing it
• Leash break distance is now calculated between the centers of the two entities' collision boxes, aligning with the rest of the leash physics calculations

Elytra

• Using a Firework Rocket to boost while flying with an Elytra now causes leashed mobs to unleash

Leash Knots

• Entities can now be leashed to a pre-existing Leash Knot by interacting with it
• Players can retrieve entities tied to a Leash Knot by interacting with it

Leashing Entities to Other Entities

Any leashable entity can now be leashed to any other leashable entity

• To leash an entity to another entity, the player must:
• Have the entity already leashed to themselves
• Sneak and interact with the target entity while holding the leash
• Leashed entities can now be "stolen" by leashing them again, transferring ownership to the player
• If re-leashing an entity would result in immediate leash snapping due to distance, the re-leashing cannot be done
• To prevent erratic behavior when leashed to each other, Llamas that are leashed no longer attempt to form caravans
• A leashed entity cannot be leashed to itself
• Baby mobs can only be leashed one way - to another entity; they cannot have other mobs leashed to them
• Known issue: When two mobs are connected, it results in the lead being rendered with an erroneous y-axis offset and appearing below one of the mobs

Physics

All leashable entities now behave more naturally when being pulled

• When leashed to a Happy Ghast, Horses, Camels, Donkeys, Mules, Boats, Chest Boats, and Sniffers now adjust their position gradually over time, aligning smoothly with their leash holder when suspended mid-air
• In all other cases, entities align to the direction they are being pulled and no longer behave erratically when suspended mid-air
• Mid-air friction now applies to Boats just like any other entity, meaning they can no longer orbit the player or behave excessively bouncily
• The distance at which leashes break has been increased to 12 blocks, except for the Happy Ghast, which has a leash break distance of 16 blocks
• When dragged on the leash, leashed objects will now orient themselves towards the leasher
• The distance between centers of entities bounding boxes, rather than their feet is used to determine the distance between two leashed entities

Rendering

• Boats and large leashable mobs that cannot fit in a Boat (Horses, Donkeys, Mules, Camels, and Sniffers) when leashed to a Happy Ghast are rendered with four leashes instead of one
• In this configuration, the harnessed Happy Ghast also features a custom rope layer wrapping around it

Shearing Updates

• Shears can now be used on leashed entities to unleash them, removing both incoming and outgoing leash connections
• Shears can now be used to remove Leash Knots
• Players cannot cut other players' leashes
• Dispensers can now use shears to unleash leashed entities
• Saddles, Horse Armor, Harnesses, and Carpets can now be removed from the mobs they can be equipped on by using Shears
• Saddles, Horse Armor, Harnesses, and Carpets cannot be removed by using Shears while the mob has a rider
• Saddles, Horse Armor, Harnesses, and Carpets cannot be removed by using Shears while the player is sneaking
• Saddles cannot be removed from Ravagers using Shears
• Dispensers with Shears cannot remove Saddles, Horse Armor, Harnesses, or Carpets equipped on mobs
• Removing Saddles, Horse Armor, Harnesses, and Carpets using Shears now plays custom sounds

Music

• Added the following new music tracks by Amos Roddy to Cherry Groves, Forest, Desert, Grove, and Lush Cave Biomes:
• Below and Above
• Broken Clocks
• Fireflies
• Lilypad
• O's Piano
• Added a new Music Disc with the track "Tears" by Amos Roddy
• The Ghast now drops the "Tears" Music Disc when killed by a Fireball deflected by a Player

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Vibrant Visuals

• Vibrant Visuals is Minecraft's biggest official visual enhancement - delivering a dazzling cosmetic upgrade with a new modern graphics pipeline and an array of visual improvements. Sunrises are more vivid, water reflects, forests become shaded, and more!
• Vibrant Visuals preserves what makes Minecraft uniquely special - pixelated shadows, caustics, and reflections have been carefully crafted to preserve and enhance Minecraft's signature blocky style
• With updated textures for blocks, items, and more that decide how different light sources interact with them, builds will become more vivid and visually interesting!
• Updated art settings and post-processing effects tie the visuals together in a signature Minecraft way
• As a cosmetic enhancement to the game, Vibrant Visuals does not impact Minecraft's gameplay, meaning you can play on Realms with friends whether they have Vibrant Visuals enabled or not (Realms subscription sold separately. Multiplayer functionality will require platform specific online subscriptions, also sold separately)

Graphical

• Made Vibrant Visuals the default graphics mode for supported devices
• To switch to Vibrant Visuals on Xbox One, Xbox One S, PlayStation 4, and some Android devices, players need to select "Vibrant Visuals" in the Video menu using the Graphics Mode drop-down. Performance may degrade for these devices.
• Customized atmospherics, color grading, fog and lighting for the End, the Nether, the Overworld dimensions and a variety of biomes in Vibrant Visuals
• Temporarily reverted weather-related changes to sky color in Vibrant Visuals while some issues are sorted out.
• Added MERS texture support for Signs in Vibrant Visuals
• Added new texture assets for a variety of trims, particles, spawn eggs, water and the dark oak boat in Vibrant Visuals
• Updated the appearance of metals for a variety of block textures in Vibrant Visuals
• Updated the Cave Vines, Chorus Flower, Pumpkin, Firefly Bush and a variety of other plant textures in Vibrant Visuals.
• Updated the Bee, Dolphin, Ghast, Pig Saddle and Strider textures in Vibrant Visuals
• Updated a variety of MERS textures in Vibrant Visuals
• Made Glass Blocks more reflective
• Tweaked metallics on Cauldrons and Ancient Debris
• Tweaked emissives on Eyeblossom
• Fixed an issue with Leather armor having a stripe of emissive across the texture
• Added emissive to the Ender Crystal Block to match item icon
• Added MERS textures for Happy Ghast and Harnesses
• Adjusted the Glow Lichen block emissive
• Fixed water not being rendered on the opposite side of clouds in Vibrant Visuals (MCPE-203239)
• Reduced ghosting of waterfalls from camera movement when volumetric fog is enabled in Vibrant Visuals. (MCPE-204062)
• The Night Vision effect now brightens the scene more consistently across brightness settings with Vibrant Visuals enabled (MCPE-201809)
• Volumetric fog no longer becomes suddenly bright when the player moves towards a block light in Vibrant Visuals (MCPE-201984)
• The back faces of transparent items held in hand, like Stained Glass, are no longer visible in Vibrant Visuals
• Clouds no longer have a pink or yellow tint, during sunrise and sunset respectively, in Vibrant Visuals
• Fixed an issue in Vibrant Visuals where black boxes sometimes appeared on End Portals when using TAAU at a non-native resolution (MCPE-212398)
• Fixed a bug in Vibrant Visuals where materials with certain properties rendered black
• Updated the clouds texture
• Item bobbing will no longer stagger when the amount of days is high (MCPE-190647)
• Entering pause while breaking a block will reset the breaking animation (MCPE-191029)
• The local player's vehicle will now always be eligible for rendering, no matter the orientation of the model compared to the render bounding box

Ambient Weather Sounds

• the_end_light_flash sound effect now triggers when the light flashes in The End dimension in Vibrant Visuals

Blocks

• Crimson and Warped Roots cannot be lit on fire or burn anymore (MCPE-80066)
• Fixed issue where Jungle Leaves did not become transparent when setting all leaf types to be transparent (MCPE-110630)
• Dispensing a Lava Bucket on waterlogged blocks no longer empties the bucket without placing Lava (MCPE-178295)
• Maximum Beacon beam height is now 2048 (MCPE-190223)
• Beacon now renders from any loaded chunk in worlds versioned 1.21.90 and higher
• Fixed Sculk Vein block looking small and elongated when held or in an item frame

Accessibility

• Text to speech will select an appropriate voice if available when changing in-game language on Android, iOS, and Win10

Commands

• Fixed a bug where players could hear sounds played with /playsound even if they were in a different dimension than the one the sound was played in (MCPE-184566)
• The camera default command will now properly reset third person camera view offset values
• The /controlscheme command no longer requires the "Experimental Creator Camera" toggle

Gameplay

• Fixed a crash that would sometimes occur when using Command Blocks
• Fixed an issue where swapping item slots during an attack against a mob would re-select the original item slot used during the attack instead of staying on the new inventory slot item
• Fixed entering the water while sprinting from double tapping forward no longer automatically enters the swimming state (MCPE-216867)
• Repositioned the teleporting point when using an End Gateway to not be too close to a cliff edge, if possible. As a result, End island portals that teleport the player outside of the map border will no longer kill the player (MCPE-174465) (MCPE-174465)
• Fixed issue where sprint jump attacking would sometimes remove all of the player's momentum (MCPE-189501)
• Fixed a bug where hitting blocks while swimming would cause players to slow down too much (MCPE-201832)
• Using a custom equippable block item in creative mode will no longer duplicate the item and equip it; it will simply place the block in the world
• Added a painting of a good boy by artist Sarah Boeving

General

• Gamertags are now used on all platforms to identify players in cross-platform multiplayer games

Items

• The Trident is now grouped with other tools/weapons in the Creative inventory (MCPE-181002)
• Mace with Wind Burst enchantment once again launches players as high as it does on Java Edition (MCPE-185829)
• The recipe for Leads has been updated to no longer require a Slime Ball
• Now the Mooshroom Spawn Egg uses its own colors and no longer has two pixels that are the same as the Cow Spawn Egg texture
• Spore Blossoms destroyed by water are now dropped as items (MCPE-127677)
• The size of the Blaze and Breeze spawn eggs have been reduced to better match the mobs' in-game size (MCPE-217634)
• Fixed inconsistent pixels on the Pale Oak Boat and Pale Oak Boat with Chest items to match other boat items
• The Green Harness item no longer uses the Gray Harness texture when Vibrant Visuals is enabled

Mobs

• Piglin Brutes will now despawn properly on peaceful difficulty (MCPE-88837)
• Mobs will no longer clip through blocks sometimes when viewing them at a distance when they auto step up a block
• Shadows are no longer rendered for entities that are riding a vehicle, unless said vehicle is invisible (MCPE-200797)
• Pigs saddled by hand no longer drop two saddles when killed (All pigs saddled by hand between 1.21.70 and now will still drop their duplicated saddles on death)
• Increased attack range for Blaze from 16 to 48 blocks to match its target detection range (MCPE-35647)
• Increased Blaze attack sound distance to 32 to match Java Edition
• Fixed bug where Ghasts could not move while shooting fireballs (MCPE-201849)
• Slimes and Magma Cubes no longer jump twice when finding or losing their targets (MCPE-114701)
• Fixed a bug where Magma Cubes and Slimes could still damage players briefly after dying (MCPE-166394)
• Now the Cold Cow variant has the correct mirroring of its horn texture
• Flying mobs no longer make footstep sounds when moving close to the ground
• Ghasts can no longer spawn in areas that are too small, preventing suffocation on spawn
• Spiders and Cave Spiders can once again spawn with a Stray rider in cold biomes (MCPE-89549)
• Spiders and Cave Spiders can once again spawn with a Wither Skeleton rider in the Nether (MCPE-89549)
• Horses, Donkeys, and Mules can now be fed carrots to heal, grow, and improve their temper
• Happy Ghast can now be pushed by other mobs even while being ridden, except when made immobile by a player standing on it

Sounds

• Fixed a bug where Parrots imitating a Drowned used Zombie sounds
• Fixed a bug where Parrots imitating a Wither Skeleton used Skeleton sounds (MCPE-174857)
• Sound files for breaking and placing Grass blocks are now slightly louder
• Leashing, unleashing, collecting leashed mobs, and leashing mobs to other mobs now play custom sounds
• Fence knots now play a sound when destroyed, either by being punched or when all their leashed entities are gone (MCPE-21743)
• Music will now fade normally when leaving a world if game pause is disabled (MCPE-212932)

Ambient Sounds

• Updated the frequency and location of various ambient block sounds
• Dead Bush ambient sounds now have a slightly increased chance of playing
• Ambient Sand sounds no longer require sky access to play, have a slightly decreased chance to play, and can now play in all biomes
• Terracotta block no longer triggers ambient Sand sounds
• Sand blocks no longer trigger ambient wind sounds
• Short Dry Grass blocks and Tall Dry Grass blocks can now trigger ambient wind sounds when above 2 Sand/Red Sand or Terracotta blocks
• Terracotta blocks no longer trigger ambient wind sounds

Projectiles

• Projectiles now have a tolerance margin that changes over time (MCPE-201608)
• Previously, all projectiles had a fixed 0.3 blocks tolerance margin added to the collision
• Now, all projectiles start with no margin for the first two ticks of their flight
• After that, the target margin will expand by 0.05 blocks per tick until it reaches the target margin of 0.3 blocks
• This allows for more precise collision on targets close to the shooting player or entity, while still allowing for some collision leeway for targets further away

Realms

• Realm owners can now choose to require members to opt into the Timeline in order to play on the Realm
• To turn this feature on, go to Realms Stories --> Settings and enable "Require opt in to Timeline"
• The feature can be turned on and off at will
• While the feature is on, Realm members who have not opted in will remain members of the Realm, but will not be able to play until they opt in
• If a Realm member who previously opted in chooses to opt out, they will not be able to play on the Realm until they opt in again
• Realm owners will be able to play on the Realm regardless of whether they have opted in
• On the Realm tab, the 'Options' button has been replaced with two buttons:
• 'Settings' takes the user to a Realm Settings page where the user can edit their worlds or make other adjustments to their Realm
• 'Add friends' takes the user to a page where they can manage members of their Realm and add new ones

Splash Potions

• The effect radius of Splash Potions is now calculated based on the distance to the bounding box of the target instead of their position (MCPE-201604)

Stability and Performance

• Fix a crash in split-screen mode when a player would destroy a chest or book an other player had open
• Fixed an issue where a resource pack error could be encountered when transferring between servers that use different versions of the same resource pack
• Fixed an issue where downloading server resources would infinitely hang if another device requested to download the same resources at the same time
• Fixed a crash when adding or changing priority of resource packs in the Create New World screen

User Interface

• Cursor position now correctly updates when pressing down on L3 or D-pad while hovering a bundle (MCPE-189314)
• Bundle tooltip no longer overlaps with item tooltips when quickly interacting with empty inventory slots on touch devices (MCPE-187171)
• Bundle UI now correctly disappears when switching Inventory tabs with controller input
• Tapping on the Bundles Tooltip on Touch devices no longer interacts with the UI behind it
• The Text Background Opacity accessibility setting now also affects hotbar tooltips, chat message backgrounds, and leaderboard displays (MCPE-79331)
• Fixed an issue where only changing the access of PlayStation friends to your world would not be saved when exiting the menu
• To maintain feature parity with the flat world presets in the Java Edition, the Snowy Kingdom flat world preset has been updated to use a snow layer instead of a snow block (MCPE-194367)
• Splitting an item stack using touch controls and moving it to a Bundle now transfers the selected amount (MCPE-188353)
• The Text Background Opacity accessibility setting now also affects hotbar tooltips and leaderboard displays (MCPE-79331)
• Chat background opacity can now be controlled with a new accessibility setting
• Empty open Bundle icon now renders correctly when Bundles are tapped with Touch Controls
• The "Game is paused" text from the pause screen will no longer go out of bounds (MCPE-217394)
• Hotbar tooltip text now has a drop shadow, to make the text more readable against bright backgrounds (MCPE-217870)
• Fixed the issue where adjusting the brightness in the Vibrant Visuals setting caused the Creeper face icons to inaccurately reflect their expected shades, and where the brightness of the Creeper face icons were affected by the in-game environment (MCPE-199256)
• The Text Background Opacity accessibility setting now defaults to 60% opacity
• The vertical angle upon which the Locator Bar arrow icons become visible now corresponds to the player's FOV setting
• Closing an Anvil or an Enchanting Table now results in the Experience Bar being shown for 5 seconds instead of the Locator Bar
• Fixed an issue where some on-screen UI elements would let the user interact with the world under them
• While using the "Joystick & tap to interact" touch mode, the "Joystick Visibility Option" is now forced into "Visible Joystick" while using the player_relative_strafe or camera_relative_strafe control scheme
• Storage settings page is now scrollable (MCPE-187962)
• Fixed a bug where keyboard button hints would be shown on the death screen (MCPE-218652)

Vanilla Parity

• Fixed a bug where Sponges would absorb water from waterlogged Barriers (MCPE-174826)
• Zoglin and Zombified Piglin are no longer faster when chasing the player in the Bedrock version
• Piglins and Hoglins naturally spawned in Bastion Remnants will now drop XP when killed (MCPE-166103)
• Fixed the Frozen Peaks biome generation so, like Java Edition, no Ice blocks are generated in the sea under the top sheet (MCPE-194838)
• Fixed a bug where players could not use usable items while sneaking and looking at interactive blocks (MCPE-64477)
• Parrots now imitate nearby monsters less frequently (MCPE-80319)
• Fixed blocks in Minecarts not being lit properly (MCPE-22533)
• Nether Fossils have been tweaked to have a placement frequency more closely aligned with Java Edition (MCPE-74632)
• Boats are now able to be pulled out of water using a Lead

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Beyond these features and additions, Minecraft Bedrock 1.21.90 also includes numerous technical and experimental updates. Players interested in the technical side of Bedrock Edition can check out the official patch notes for a detailed breakdown of all the changes.