Mojang announced Chaos Cubed at Minecraft LIVE on March 21, 2026, giving players their first look at the second major game drop of the year. Arriving as Java Edition 26.2 and Bedrock Edition 26.30, the update centers on a hazardous new cave biome, a pair of decorative block sets, and a passive mob whose behavior changes depending on what it eats.
Quick answer: Chaos Cubed is scheduled for Q2 2026, with a likely release window of mid-to-late June 2026. It adds sulfur caves, sulfur and cinnabar blocks, and the sulfur cube mob.
Chaos Cubed Expected Release Date
Mojang has not locked in an exact date, but the update is officially slated for Q2 2026. Given that the Tiny Takeover drop (26.1) launched on March 24 and Mojang now follows a roughly quarterly cadence, mid-to-late June 2026 lines up with the pattern established by last year's releases. No snapshots have entered testing yet, so the timeline could shift once experimental builds begin rolling out.
Sulfur Caves Biome
Sulfur caves generate underground and stand out immediately thanks to their warm red-and-yellow palette. The biome contains sulfur pools fed by a special block called potent sulfur. When potent sulfur sits underwater, it emits bubbles that turn into noxious gas particles at the surface. Any player or mob that enters water connected to potent sulfur receives the Nausea status effect, producing a disorienting, dizzying visual distortion.
The pools look inviting, but are genuinely dangerous to wade through unprepared. Mojang described them during the LIVE showcase as "downright noxious," so you will want to approach carefully — or use the hazard creatively in builds and traps.
Sulfur and Cinnabar Block Families
Two full decorative block sets ship with Chaos Cubed. Each family includes a base block, polished variant, brick variant, chiseled variant, and the usual stairs, slabs, and walls for every tier. Here is the complete breakdown:
| Block family | Color | Variants included |
|---|---|---|
| Sulfur | Yellow / crystalline | Sulfur, polished sulfur, sulfur bricks, chiseled sulfur — each with stairs, slabs, and walls |
| Cinnabar | Red | Cinnabar, polished cinnabar, cinnabar bricks, chiseled cinnabar — each with stairs, slabs, and walls |
| Potent sulfur | Yellow (special) | Single block; emits bubbles underwater that cause Nausea at the surface |
Between the two families and potent sulfur, builders gain a substantial new warm-toned palette for underground bases, temples, and decorative projects.
Sulfur Cube Mob — How It Works
The sulfur cube is a passive, slime-like mob that spawns naturally inside sulfur caves. It resembles a slime or magma cube at first glance, but its signature mechanic is entirely new: it can absorb full blocks, and the absorbed block changes how the cube behaves when hit.
Absorbing Blocks
You can feed a sulfur cube by dropping a full block near it or by using a block directly on the mob. Once absorbed, the block becomes visible inside the cube's translucent body. In this state, the sulfur cube turns immobile and cannot take normal damage. Instead, attacks knock it back, with stronger hits sending it farther.
Block-Dependent Physics
The absorbed block determines the cube's knockback physics. Confirmed interactions so far:
| Absorbed block | Effect on sulfur cube |
|---|---|
| Wooden logs / stems | Bouncy — the cube rebounds off surfaces |
| Ice | Low friction — the cube slides across the ground |
| Blocks of iron | Heavy — higher gravity, shorter travel distance |
| Wool | Floaty — lower gravity, longer hang time |
Many other full blocks can be absorbed as well, though the specific physics for every block type have not yet been detailed. Mojang says the potential for experimentation is effectively limitless.
Removing the Absorbed Block
Using shears on a sulfur cube that has absorbed a block will pop the block out as a dropped item and return the mob to its normal, mobile state.
Splitting and Growth
When killed, a sulfur cube splits into two smaller cubes, similar to slimes and magma cubes. Unlike those mobs, however, the small versions can grow back into a full-sized sulfur cube over time — functioning more like baby mobs than permanent miniatures. The sulfur cube is also immune to fall damage. Whether small sulfur cubes drop anything on death has not been confirmed.
Creative and Minigame Potential
Because the sulfur cube's physics shift with every block it absorbs, the mob opens up design space that Minecraft has never had before. Mojang demonstrated several minigame concepts during the LIVE Deep Dig segment, including pinball-style arenas and curling tracks that take advantage of the ice-slide behavior. Parkour map designers can use bouncy wood-fed cubes as launchpads, while PvP arenas could weaponize heavy iron cubes as projectiles. The real depth will emerge once snapshots go live and the community starts experimenting.
Chaos Cubed is shaping up to be a focused but mechanically rich drop. The sulfur caves give spelunkers a new hazard to navigate, the block families expand the builder's toolkit, and the sulfur cube introduces a physics-driven mob interaction that could reshape how players design minigames and contraptions. Once snapshots begin, expect the community to push the sulfur cube's block-absorption system well beyond anything Mojang showed on stage.