Minecraft beta and preview 1.20.40.21 patch notes: Water sounds parity, bug fixes, and more

A new Minecraft beta/preview has arrived. Beta and preview version 1.20.40.21 is loaded with parity features and bug fixes. Almost every other week, Mojang Studios releases a beta and preview version to let players try out features and bug fixes set to arrive in the next update. While we were all eagerly anticipating a new Bedrock update this week, a surprise Minecraft beta/preview version has dropped.

This release brings improvements to the explorer maps from the Villager Experimental changes. As for parity changes, the headlining feature is the adjustment of water splash sounds to match the Java Edition.

Let's check out the following Minecraft beta/preview patch notes for a brief overview.

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Minecraft beta and preview 1.20.40.21 patch notes

Experimental villager trade rebalancing

Explorer maps have been improved in this new patch:

• The seven new Explorer Maps from Cartographers can now also point to structures in already explored chunks

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Features and bug fixes

Performance/stability

• Fixed a crash that could occur when running in the Archold room in the Spellrune marketplace map.

Vanilla parity

• Changes to water splash sounds.
• The ambient sounds for entering exiting water are now played only when the actor is submerged below eye-level in water, matching the Java Edition.
• The splash sound for entering water has been updated to match the Java Edition.
• The boss bar on the HUD is now the same color as the Java Edition.
• Camels can no longer dash while in Lava or Water.
• Iron Golems no longer spawn naturally in two-block-high spaces where they would start suffocating.

Gameplay

• Players are no longer affected by arrow effects if the arrow is blocked.
• Villages in the End and Nether are no longer saved to the Overworld.

Items

• Buckets can once again remove water from waterlogged blocks unless fully submerged.

Touch controls

• Added a sprint button for Camels when the "sprint using the joystick" option is turned off.
• Fixed the Sneak button partially blocking the D-Pad Up button when using touch controls.

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Technical updates

Add-ons and script engine

• "minecraft:transformation" now prevents blocks from being transformed past the 30x30x30 pixel limit and "minecraft:unit_cube" from being translated or scaled. An invalid block will instead display the "update" block.

API

• Released World.getMoonPhase, MoonPhase, and MoonPhaseCount v1.6.0

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Experimental technical updates

Graphical

• Fixed an issue where particles were not consistently lit while in the Deferred Technical Preview.

Items

• Deprecated "minecraft:weapon" component starting in version 1.20.40
• Deprecated "minecraft:on_use" component starting in version 1.20.40
• Deprecated "minecraft:on_use_on" component starting in version 1.20.40

These are all the fixes and changes in Minecraft beta/preview. Players can still expect a new update to drop this week. It's possible that it has been delayed due to the Minecraft Live 2023 announcement.