5 best features coming in Minecraft 1.20.5 update

The minor update Minecraft 1.20.5, often referred to as The Armadillo Update, is bringing much more than armadillo mobs to the game. Fans will find several additional features including wolf armor, bogged mobs, a revamped UI in many aspects of the game's menus, new wolf variants, and much, much more that may not be readily apparent upon loading up the update.

Whatever the case, even though Minecraft 1.20.5 won't be as large as the 1.21 update, it should still give players plenty to enjoy while they wait. Many of these features can also currently be enjoyed in recent Java snapshots and Bedrock Previews, and it doesn't hurt to take a look at some of the best feature additions in the 1.20.5 update.

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5 best additions coming to vanilla Minecraft in the 1.20.5 update

1) Armadillos

Armadillos were the winner of Minecraft's 2023 Mob Vote (Image via Mojang)

After winning the 2023 Mob Vote competition, armadillos will be fully implemented as vanilla mobs in the 1.20.5 update. Spawning in badlands and savanna biomes, they will curl up when they sense danger from players or hostile mobs. These little critters can be brushed to obtain armadillo scutes, which can be used to craft wolf armor for gamers' canine companions.

Armadillos are also feared by spiders and cave spiders since they eat spider eyes to breed. Due to this, it might not be a bad idea to keep an armadillo around, even if it can't be tamed as a pet mob at the moment.

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2) Wolf variants and wolf armor

Minecraft 1.20.5 will be a huge update for wolf customization (Image via Mojang)

Minecraft's 1.20.5 update will be a big one for players' favorite friends, as wolf mobs are receiving eight new variants that spawn in different biomes, while the original wolf type (now known as pale) will appear in taigas. Even better, players can use armadillo scutes to create wolf armor, which will absorb damage and progressively show wear over time until the armor breaks and all durability is lost.

If that wasn't enough, wolf armor can be dyed much like players can dye leather armor. This provides millions of new combinations of customization options between wolf variants, their collars, and their armor, bringing plenty of personality to wolves for the foreseeable future. Tamed wolves even had their maximum health total doubled from 20 points to 40, which is an added plus.

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3) Updated UI

Minecraft 1.20.5 includes several modernization updates to the UI (Image via Mojang)

After over a decade of relatively few changes in Minecraft's user interface, the 1.20.5 update is bringing modernization to the UI. The dirt texture seen in many menus and in the end credits has been removed, with a blurred texture taking its place in menus while the end credits have received their own End portal effect. Buttons have also been rearranged to be more consistent across the UI.

Moreover, the darkened background's blur in menus can be configured in the accessibility settings to suit a player's preferences. Players with multi-monitor setups will also notice that the menu panorama will now stretch across their monitors, and the in-game world will perform the same function if permitted to do so.

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4) The Bogged (Experimental Feature)

The bogged is a new hostile mob arriving in Minecraft 1.20.5 (Image via Mojang)

A surprise arrival to Minecraft's experimental releases on Valentine's Day 2024, the bogged is a new type of skeleton variant that naturally spawns in swamp and mangrove swamp biomes, and can also be spawned by trial spawners in trial chambers. In many ways, it operates like a standard skeleton hostile mob, but can fire poisoned arrows from its bow.

Moreover, players can use shears on the bogged to cause them to drop red or brown mushrooms, making them one of the few hostile mobs that can serve as a food source. In addition to dropping standard arrows and bones, the bogged will also drop tipped arrows of poison when killed. They also possess a slower attack speed compared to standard skeletons.

It should be noted that although the bogged are arriving in the 1.20.5 update, they'll be introduced as an Experimental Feature and will require Minecraft 1.21 update's experimental Features to be enabled before they will spawn as intended.

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5) Spawn chunk rework

Spawn chunk sizes have been reduced to improve Minecraft's loading times (Image via Mojang)

With the aim of reducing load times when creating a new world, the size of spawn chunks in Minecraft 1.20.5 has been reduced. Beforehand, spawn chunks that loaded and remained active when a world was created had a size of a 19x19 area of entity ticking chunks, and this has been reduced to a radius of 3x3 instead, which should speed up load times during world creation.

Moreover, the lowering of the spawn chunk size should reduce the overall CPU/RAM load on a Minecraft player's device since spawn chunks remain loaded, unlike other standard chunks. However, players can use the new game rule command "spawnChunkRadius," which will allow them to set their own custom spawn chunk size to suit their needs accordingly.