Minecraft Snapshot 25w05a: Fireflies, Cow Variants, & How to Play

The next Minecraft game drop is growing larger by the day, and now the long-lost fireflies are even joining the fray! So, today, we explore Minecraft Snapshot 25w05a alongside the new cows, blocks, and how you too can play.

Patch Overview

Including all the features added in 25w02a, Minecraft snapshot 25w05a adds two new cow variants, bushes with and without fireflies, and new ambient sounds to enhance the immersion of badlands and deserts. That’s a lot of changes with so many already on the way, and it seems like this game drop is focusing on breathing new life into older areas of the game.

Bush Blocks

• Biomes: Plains, Windswept Hills, Windswept Gravelly Hills, Windswept Forest, River, Frozen River, Forest, Birch, Forest, & Old Growth Birch Forest

Bush blocks now generate in biomes across the overworld, finally giving the dead bush block in deserts a living counterpart. The bush block changes visually to match the biome in which it is placed or generated and can be spread to nearby blocks using bonemeal. Bush blocks are purely decorative at this time.

Firefly Bush Blocks

• Biomes: Swamp & Near Rivers

Firefly bush blocks are visually the same as regular bush blocks but come with the key difference of having firefly particles appear around them during the night. The firefly bush block emits a light level of two and can be spread with bone meal to create more.

Cow Variants

• Biomes: Warm & Cold Biomes

Two new cow variants are being added to Minecraft, bringing the total to five when counting red and brown mooshrooms. The cold cow has a heavy light brown coat and dark horns reminiscent of highland cattle and spawns in cold biomes, while the warm cow has a reddish brown coat and dark horns and spawns in warm biomes. The standard cow variant, now known as a temperate cow, will continue to spawn in moderate-temperature biomes.

New Ambient Sounds

• Biomes: Desert & Badlands

Sand, red sand, and terracotta surrounded by any of those three blocks on at least three sides have a chance of playing a new sand idle sound when players are nearby. Additionally, dead bush blocks now have a chance to play an ambient sound as well, but unlike the new sand ambient sound, the dead bush sound will only play in desert and badland biomes.

How to Install Minecraft Snapshot 25w05a

Installing Minecraft Snapshot 25w05a takes place right inside the Minecraft Launcher prior to clicking play. Below, we have detailed every step to get the snapshot installed so that you can get right into the game.

1. First, open the Minecraft Launcher and enable snapshots under the ‘Installations’ tab.
2. Second, click ‘New Installation’ and then ‘Latest Snapshot’ in the drop-down menu.
3. Third, click ‘Create.’

With these three steps complete, a new snapshot installation should be a selectable option before clicking play!

How to make Minecraft Snapshot 25w05a Servers

Herding cattle is always better with friends! Minecraft 25w05a servers can be created for free through home hosting, but we recommend paid hosting options for ease of use and performance, especially since snapshots can be buggy! Paid hosting is offered here at BisectHosting and many other places around the web. No less than 4GB of server RAM is recommended.

Minecraft Snapshot 25w05a: Full Patch Notes

https://twitter.com/slicedlime/status/1884632840089776449

New Features

• Added cold and warm variants for the Cow
• Added Firefly Bush block
• Added Bush block
• Added new ambient block sounds for ambient sounds in Desert and Badlands biomes

Cow Variants

• New Cow variants have been added, the variant is determined by the biome they spawn in
• Temperate variant - The Cow we are all familiar with
  • Spawns by default where the cold and warm variants do not spawn
• Cold variant - A variant that spawns in the following biomes:
  • Old Growth Pine Taiga
  • Old Growth Spruce Taiga
  • Taiga
  • Snowy Taiga
  • Windswept Hills
  • Windswept Gravelly Hills
  • Windswept Forest
• Warm variant - A variant that spawns in the following biomes:
  • Savanna
  • Savanna Plateau
  • Windswept Savanna
  • Jungle
  • Sparse Jungle
  • Bamboo Jungle
  • Eroded Badlands
  • Wooded Badlands
  • Badlands
• When bred by a player, a baby Cow variant will not be chosen by the current biome, but instead randomly selected from one of the parents' variants

Firefly Bush

• The Firefly Bush is found in Swamps and near Rivers
• When it's dark, glowing firefly particles appear around the Firefly Bush
• Using Bone Meal on a Firefly Bush will spawn another Firefly Bush item
• The Firefly Bush emits light level 2

Bush

• The Bush is a new type of decorative block that can be found in small patches in the following biomes:
  • Plains
  • Windswept Hills
  • Windswept Gravelly Hills
  • Windswept Forest
  • River
  • Frozen River
  • Forest
  • Birch Forest
  • Old Growth Birch Forest
• The Bush can be used in the Composter
• Using Bone Meal on a Bush places a neighbouring Bush next to the Bush if possible

New Ambient Sounds for Desert and Badlands

• Sand, Red Sand and Terracotta of any color have a chance of playing ambient sounds when surrounded by any one of them on at least 3 sides 8 blocks away
  • block.sand.idle can be played in any biome
  • block.sand.wind only plays when in Desert or Badlands biomes
• Dead Bush blocks have a chance of playing ambient sounds when placed on top of two blocks that are any color of Terracotta, Sand or Red Sand blocks in any biome

Changes

• The look of the temperate Cow has been slightly updated to have an extruded snout
• Beacons and their beams now render beyond 16 chunks up to the client render distance
  • To keep it easily visible at large distances, the beam is rendered thicker the further away you are
  • The beam now renders up to 2048 blocks high, up from 1024

Technical Changes

• The Data Pack version is now 65
• The Resource Pack version is now 50

Data Pack Versions 65

Commands

• Text component arguments in /bossbar, /scoreboard and /team commands are now resolved before use in context of entity held in @s

Tags Block Tags

• Added #plays_ambient_desert_block_sounds - blocks that will play ambient desert block sounds

Damage Type Tags

• Renamed #bypasses_blocking back to #bypasses_shield

Cow Variants

• Cow variants can be data-driven by adding entries to data/<namespace>/cow_variant/<id>.json
• This feature is experimental
• Fields in file:
  • model - one of: normal, cold, warm
  • asset_id - namespaced id for this variant asset, resolves to assets/<namespace>/textures/<path>.png
  • spawn_conditions - field described in uniform variant selection above

Item Components Changes to the blocks_attacks component

• New bypassed_by field - hashtagged damage type tag (optional)
  • If specified, blocking is bypassed by these damage types
• The objects within the damage_reductions list now have a new field:
  • horizontal_blocking_angle - angle in degrees as a positive float (default: 90)
    • The maximum angle between the user's facing and the incoming attack for the block to be effective

Resource Pack Version 50

• Updated Pig textures
• New and updated Cow textures
• Added textures for new Firefly Bush block
• Added textures for new Bush blocks

Updated Pig textures

• Texture pig has been renamed to temperate_pig

New and updated Cow textures and model

• Added new textures for Cow variants:
  • cold_cow
  • warm_cow
• Texture cow has been renamed to temperate_cow
• Changed the size of temperate_cow texture
• Changed the size of red_mooshroom and brown_mooshroom textures
• The temperate Cow has an updated model and texture
  • Cow models now have a snout
  • Cow models now have their legs mirrored

Fixed bugs in 25w05a

• MC-108495- Non-LivingBase entities can be on a team (and show color) but can't be targeted using team=
• MC-165711- Eye of ender hitbox always lags behind the animation
• MC-279257- crafting_transmute recipes don't give output if the resulting item has the same ID as the input item
• MC-279280- windswept_hills is in both the warm and cold variant farm animal biome tags
• MC-279315- Warm pigs do not spawn in windswept savannas
• MC-279353- The minecraft:fall_damage_multiplier attribute doesn't function when riding specific rideable mobs
• MC-279390- Baby zombified piglin helmet clipping
• MC-279497- Structure preview outline breaks for max integer-length sizes
• MC-279531- GameTest entrypoint doesn't report failures to spawn the structure
• MC-279534- Display entities use interpolation duration value for teleport duration
• MC-279543- Neutral Mobs don't attack the player back when attacked under certain conditions
• MC-279556- The "/execute on attacker" command does not target an entity previously targeted by the "/data" command
• MC-279577- Test blocks are restricted to one within a block-based structure
• MC-279684- Shield blocking animation no longer plays when blocking an attack
• MC-279685- Shields no longer consume durability when blocking attacks
• MC-279688- Sprinting is canceled upon flying with elytra
• MC-279692- Instrument component crashes the game
• MC-279693- Summoned lingering potions render as splash potions
• MC-279697- Llamas show a non-interactive saddle slot
• MC-279698- provides_banner_pattern component does not use hash prefix
• MC-279760- Typing an inline definition in the provides_trim_material component crashes the game
• MC-279857 - Piglins summoned by the /summon command do not pick up gold items