New damage command in Minecraft: All you need to know

Mojang just announced the latest snapshot for Minecraft Java Edition. Snapshot 23wo6a is finally here and brings about an entirely new command: the damage command.

This new command and everything else Mojang has in store is available now with the latest snapshot. Unfortunately, Bedrock Edition has to wait a little bit.

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Minecraft snapshot introduces new damage command

The official Minecraft website had this to say about the new damage command in Java Edition:

"Damage Types are a new registry that can be extended through data packs. A Damage Type determines how damage is handled by the game. This includes which attributes the damage has as well as which death message is used when an entity dies due to that type of damage."

The command's syntax is:

• damage <target> <amount> [<damageType>] [at <location>]
• damage <target> <amount> [<damageType>] [by <entity>] [from <cause>]

In this syntax, the target refers to the entity upon which the damage is inflicted. The amount determines how much damage is applied to the entity, which can be enough to kill.

Meanwhile, damageType determines which type of harm is inflicted. This could be fire, fall damage, or something else. location is where the damage is inflicted from, which is only used when there's no entity executing attacks.

In the second syntax, the entity tag refers to the attacker inflicting damage. The cause tag refers to the source of damage.

• message_id: The message ID used for deaths caused by whichever damage type
• This will be combined with other string fragments to make a translation key
• exhaustion: The amount of hunger exhaustion caused by the specific damage type
• scaling: Determines whether this damage type scales with difficulty changes
• Possible values for this tag are:
• never: Damage will always be the same
• always: Damage will scale with difficulty, i.e. more damage on Normal vs. Easy
• when_caused_by_living_non_player: Damage scales with difficulty if it was caused by a living entity who is not a player
• effects: An optional field that controls how damage manifests when it is inflicted on players Possible values for this field:
• hurt (default): Plays the default hurt sound
• thorns: Will play the thorn hurt sound
• drowning: Plays the drowning damage sound
• burning: One tick of the burning sound
• poking: Plays the sweet berry bush sound
• freezing: The freeze tick sound
• death_message_type: An optional field that determines if unique death messages are needed
• Possible values for this field:
• default: Standard, with no special death message logic applied
• fall_variants: Send a variant of the fall damage death instead of the normal death message
• intentional_game_design: Send the intentional game design message as opposed to a regular death message

Damage just got a serious revamp from Mojang, and the game will never be the same again.

The 1.20 update is coming soon (Image via Mojang)

To get this latest Minecraft snapshot, players need to open the Minecraft Launcher. From there, they need to navigate to the Installations tab and find an option to enable snapshots.

Enable them, and the latest one, which is 23wo6a in this case, will be implemented. Start a new Minecraft world from there and enjoy the new features. If you want to delve into experimental features, try enabling them in the world settings.