I watched a Sulfur Cube slither toward my carefully placed TNT and realized my neat redstone lab had five seconds to live — the room smelled of singed wool and bad decisions. A second later the cube brightened and the world jumped: blocks flew, boots scattered, and my survival instincts switched to running. That instant told me everything I needed to know about Snapshot 26.2 Snapshot 5 — Mojang is sharpening the chaos.
I’m going to walk you through the change log with the clarity I wish I’d had before my base became a crater. You’ll get what’s new, how it behaves in practical play, and the small details that shift tactics in PvE and creative builds.
Mobs with a fuse: how Sulfur Cubes now behave
In cramped builds, one misplaced block often decides the night.
The headline here is a new explosive archetype for Sulfur Cubes. If a Sulfur Cube absorbs a dropped TNT block (or you feed it one), that harmless waddling hazard can become a walking bomb. Triggering the TNT—via fire, Flint and Steel, a Redstone signal, or a nearby detonation—starts a fuse and turns the cube into a timed threat.
- Fire or Redstone causes a 6-second fuse.
- Nearby explosions trigger a randomized 0.75–3 second fuse.
- Once primed the Sulfur Cube is immune to damage and the internal TNT cannot be removed with shears.
I’ve watched players try to tame this by engineering containment pens and timed traps; now those designs need a rethink. Treat any Sulfur Cube with TNT as a live variable in your Redstone equations.
How do you create an Explosive Sulfur Cube in Minecraft?
Drop a TNT block near a Sulfur Cube or feed one the TNT directly; once it absorbs the block it gains the explosive archetype. Ignite that internal TNT with fire, Flint and Steel, a Redstone trigger, or let a nearby blast prime it — then back away. Remember: when primed the cube is invulnerable and the TNT can’t be sheared out.
Geysers: nature finds a new mischief
I’ve watched small pools become unexpected launch pads after just one update.
Potent Sulfur now reacts with water and magma to produce geysers. If a Potent Sulfur block has magma underneath and water above (in a Sulfur Pool with 1–4 source blocks), it can erupt at random intervals. Geysers blast water particles skyward and can fling players, mobs, and items into the air — excellent for mobility, traps, or pure chaos.
The new geyser sound effects give them presence; you’ll hear them before you see them. Use them to your advantage in contraptions, or avoid them if you value your dinner.
How do geysers work in Minecraft?
Place Potent Sulfur above a Magma block or under a Sulfur Pool with up to four water source blocks and the tile becomes geyser-capable. Eruptions happen at random, pushing entities upward and sending water particles into the sky — it behaves unpredictably, so test setups in Creative or a backup world before using them in survival farms.
The geyser mechanic adds environmental variety and risk — a biome can now physically alter how you move or fight. Design builds with this in mind or use geysers as an unexpected elevator for friends you’d rather prank than help.
Small changes that shift playstyles
In my experience, the smallest edits force the biggest strategy changes.
Snapshot 26.2 Snapshot 5 ships a few other tweaks that matter: Sulfur Spikes and geysers have new audio cues; the Sulfur Cube hitbox sees minor adjustments; Hoglins are now fully classified as hostile, so they won’t spawn in Peaceful mode anymore. These aren’t flashy, but they alter spawn logic and the way you plan farms and defensive lines.
Mojang continues to iterate in the Java snapshot channel — if you’re running the launcher, load the latest snapshot to test these behaviors yourself. Don’t forget to back up worlds before experimenting; I learned that the hard way when a cube turned my storage room into a crater.
I used to treat snapshots as curiosities; now I treat them as gameplay primers. You and I can test mechanics in Creative, prototype in a secondary world, and bring the lessons back to survival. Which change in Snapshot 26.2 Snapshot 5 do you think will rewrite how people build and fight — the walking timed bombs or the random sky-launchers?