Ready your screenshot buttons and start rehearsing your best "naaaaww"s. The final snapshot of the year enters Minecraft Java, and what better way to end the year than with something that has been on our bucket list for quite a while: the adorable axolotl?

We hope you'll end the year on a good note, and the entirety of the Java team wishes you happy holidays.

New Features in 20w51a

Added the axolotl!

Axolotl

Amphibious!
Axolotls currently love tropical fish, though this may change. Tropical fish or tropical fish buckets can be used to mate axolotls
Axolotls will swim around with you if you're holding a tropical fish or tropical fish bucket in one of your hands
When a player kills a mob that the axolotl was attacking or being attacked by, the axolotl will show its appreciation by granting the player temporary regeneration and removing any mining fatigue effects
You can pick up your axolotl in a water bucket and carry it around just like a salmon or cod!
Axolotls will always chase after squids and other types of fish
Axolotls are skittish, but they will attack Drowned and Guardians if you tempt them with their favorite food - tropical fish!
Axolotls do not like it out of water, and will dry up and begin taking damage if they are out of water for longer than 5 minutes
An axolotl will not dry up as long as they are in water or rain
Sometimes when an axolotl takes damage, it will pretend to be dead so that it stops being attacked
There are 4 common varieties and 1 rare variety of axolotl
Axolotls do not spawn in the world yet, but you can find spawn eggs for them in the creative inventory

Changes in 20w51a

Bundles and shulker box items will now drop their items when destroyed
Some changes have been made to Sculk Sensors

Sculk Sensors

Eating Start has been removed as an event for a few reasons.
- It is inconsistent with our philosophy around vibrations. Mining a block is not considered a vibration because a physical event hasn't happened in the world yet (you can stop mining and the block will revert). This is the same for eating: you can start eating, but then stop and the food reverts as if eating never occurred.
- It wasn't widely considered to be a useful event for players to use Sculk Sensors with.
- Eating Finish is staying, and will likely be much more useful to Sculk Sensors for this scenario.
Walking on wool no longer causes vibrations.
Throwing wool as an item onto the ground no longer causes vibrations.
Sculk Sensors are now silent while waterlogged.

Vibration Frequency Changes

As we continue to consider feedback from the community, some changes to the frequency ranges have been made. We expect this to change quite heavily up until release to figure out the most interesting ranges for gameplay, and as always feedback is extremely welcome! Here is the newest table in this snapshot.

Vibration Types	Frequency Value
Step	1
Flap	2
Swim	3
Elytra Free Fall	4
Hit Ground	5
Splash, Wolf Shaking	6
Projectile Shoot	7
Projectile Land, Eating Finish, Entity Hit	8
Armor Stand Add Item	9
Block Close, Block Unswitch, Block Unpress, Block Detach, Dispense Fail	10
Block Open, Block Switch, Block Press, Block Attach	11
Block Place, Fluid Place, Flint And Steel Use	12
Block Destroy, Fluid Pickup	13
Fishing Rod Reel-In, Container Close, Piston Contract	14
Fishing Rod Cast, Container Open, Explode, Lightning Strike, Piston Extend	15

Technical Changes in 20w51a

Added gamerule playersSleepingPercentage (100 by default), which sets what percentage of players must sleep to skip the night. Setting to 0 will mean 1 player is always enough to skip the night. Setting above 100 will prevent skipping the night.

Fixed bugs in 20w51a

MC-149799 When a crossbow is loaded and in the offhand, you do not see it anymore if you carry an item in the main hand
MC-176615 It is possible to destroy netherite items with lava by putting them inside a container
MC-203563 Cake appears eaten for a split second when putting a candle on it
MC-203568 Trying to put a candle onto a candle cake duplicates the candle
MC-204058 Placing a candle on a cake causes hunger display desync
MC-204146 Netherite can burn whilst inside of a bundle
MC-205057 Bundle inventory preview is off-center inside of the tooltip box
MC-205212 Desync when putting a candle on a cake in Survival mode
MC-207405 Nether stars can be blown up while being inside of a bundle/shulker box
MC-208082 Game stalls when any message is displayed in chat while playing with an expired session

Minecraft Snapshot 20w51a