On April 1, 2013, Mojang released a hoax announcement for Minecraft 2.0, a new game they had supposedly been working on for two years, describing how it would "bring blocky simulation games to the next level." The post also contained a changelog comprised mostly of nonsensical changes, such as a new slab of TNT called the Etho slab, and the addition of coal blocks (which did not exist at the time).

Although lacking most of the promised additions, Minecraft 2.0 was produced and distributed to select celebrity individuals^[1] to showcase to the public as part of the joke. Minecraft 2.0 is a fork of 1.5.1, and is the only joke release not available through the Minecraft launcher.

Despite being a joke, some features added in this version were implemented in subsequent updates.

Additions

Blocks

Etho Slab

• The data value is 160, although a variant with ID 159 (double Etho slab) also exists.
• Can be crafted with 3 TNT:

Ingredients	Crafting recipe
TNT	6

• Much like other slabs, it can be placed on the lower or upper half of a block.
• It has the same functions as a normal TNT; however, when it explodes, it spawns an anvil over entities in the explosion's range, including Players.
  • This and the block's name are references to EthosLab, a Minecraft YouTuber who often tries to kill players with falling anvils.

Torch (Burnt-out)

• The data value is 161.
• Torches now burn out after a random amount of ticks.
• They can be relit with flint and steel.
• Burnt-out torches were originally supposed to be added in the Halloween Update, where lanterns were supposed to be the new light source. However, this feature wasn't added to the Halloween Update before release and was later officially rejected.

Block of Coal

• The data value is 162.
• Just like the other mineral blocks, it is crafted with 3×3 coal:

Ingredients	Crafting recipe
Coal

• However, when it is put into the crafting table to get back the coal, the coal obtained is not stackable with other coal, because it has a different item data value: 32767 instead of 0. This is likely an intentional bug.
• This block was later added into Minecraft in Java Edition 1.6.1 with the same texture as from the April Fools version, but it was later retextured.

Tinted Glass

• Has a data value of 163.
• Is opaque.
• Glass can be dyed any color that the dye exists for, and yields 8 tinted glass of the corresponding color:

Ingredients	Crafting recipe
Glass + Bone Meal or Light Gray Dye or Gray Dye or Ink Sac or Pink Dye or Red Dye or Orange Dye or Yellow Dye or Lime Dye or Green Dye or Light Blue Dye or Cyan Dye or Lapis Lazuli or Purple Dye or Magenta Dye or Cocoa Beans	8888888888888888

• Contains block data values ranging from 0–15 that specify the color of the glass. Wool's block data values produce the same colors when used on tinted glass.
• In Java Edition 1.7.2, tinted glass was added to the game under the name stained glass.
  • At its first introduction, 13w41a, it used the 2.0 textures, but it was changed in the next snapshot, 13w42a.
• In Java Edition 1.17, tinted glass was added. It is unlikely that the identical naming of these blocks was intentional.

• 
  Etho slab
• 
  Torch (Burnt-out)
• 
  Block of Coal
• 
  Tinted Glasses

Mobs

"Horses", "Ponies"

• Textures are called pig_horse, and cow_horse.
• These "horses" and "ponies" can sometimes be obtained when cows or pigs are spawned with spawn eggs.
• They follow a player holding an apple or sugar, but they breed like normal horses.

Pink wither

• Attracted to sugar, restores health to all surrounding mobs, and applies bone meal to all eligible neighboring blocks.
• It also has the ability to grow roses, dandelions, grass and ferns on grass blocks, due to the bone meal.
• Starts off with one head. Feeding it sugar grows another head (up to three) and increase the range of these effects.
• Pink withers are spawned by placing pink wool, with a flower pot containing a rose on top.
• Just like their evil counterpart, they drop nether stars.
• It is still classified as a hostile mob, though its behavior is not hostile.
• The pink wither is also considered undead, and is hurt by potions of Healing and healed by potions of Harming.
• Unlike the normal wither the pink wither can't fly and has no health bar.
• In the version .jar file the texture is named wither_pink.
• Pink withers were also seen in 15w14a, another April Fools snapshot.

Diamond chickens

• Rarely spawns instead of a normal chicken.
• Lays diamonds or lapis lazuli, or explodes instead of laying eggs.

Redstone bug

• Has the appearance of a silverfish, but with a shade of red that is the same as the redstone they spawned over.
• Same behavior as silverfish.
• Spawns when a redstone error is activated, on the spot of the error.

• 
  Diamond Chicken
• 
  Redstone Bug (silverfish)
• 
  Horse (cow)
• 
  Pony (pig)
• 
  Pink Wither

Changes

Blocks

Dropper

• Has been renamed to floppers.
• Change anything they drop to a raw fish.

Furnace

• Has a new NBT tag  Heat that can reach from 0 to 700.
• The tag increases every tick the furnace is lit with a 50% probability.
• It decreases with a 25% probability every tick it is not lit.
• The furnace has a higher chance of spawning a large smoke particle the higher the  Heat tag is.
• When  Heat reaches 700 the furnace has a 25% chance of exploding every tick.
• The explosion has a power of 5 and creates fire.

Torches

• Burn out over time, turning into burnt-out torches.
• They can be relighted with flint and steel.

Mobs

Chicken

• Are now a neutral mob, and spawn reinforcements with a 25% probability when killed.
• They also attack when the player looks at them. This can be prevented by wearing a pumpkin. They have an attack strength of 4.

Pigs, Mooshrooms, Cows, Sheeps and Chickens.

• New NBT tag Fatness with a default value of 0.
• Increases every time they are fed with the item to breed them.
• The size of body increases except for chickens.
• When the Fatness reaches 10 or higher the animal explodes without destroying any blocks.
• They drop up to two times their Fatness items.

Sheep

• Using a golden apple makes them fly.

Zombie Pigmen

• Now carry "Battle signs".

General

Mobs

• "Super Hostile Mode" is an occasional event (every 2–5 minutes on Purple version).
  • Consisting of a shower of lightning bolts around the player (and usually striking the player at least once), while spawning a large number of powerful monsters in the area and applying the Blindness status to the player. These spawns include not only heavily armed and armored zombies and skeletons, and multiple charged creepers, but even the occasional blaze and other monsters that don't usually spawn in the Overworld. This is a reference to Vechs' Super Hostile series of maps. All of these are apparently triggered by "punching wood" or crafting anything. Naturally, these are some of the first things a Survival player needs to do.

Options

There is a new option for Super HD Graphics. When this option is turned on, it makes all textures monochrome except for recolored/secondary layer textures, such as grass side overlay or the colored glass. Super HD Graphics mode does not, however, make the game more laggy or glitchy.

Speech bubbles

Blocks and mobs can have speech bubbles containing text above their heads, simulating talking. All quotes: "That hurts :(", "My eye!", "..zzZZZ", "Why!?", "I'll be back!", "You didn't ....", "Oof", "(&%!@*#&%!@$#", "Ouch", "Hi there!", "That tickles", "Who's there!", "I thought we were friends", "You're mean!", "Whiiii", "Not dropping anything!", "I like you!", "I HATE you!", "YOU NO TAKE .. COBBLE!", "I'm diamond", "You punched me", "Stop punching me", "I'm dirt", "Mummy?", "SSSSSSST", "KABOOM?", "BULLY!", "I'm telling", "Creeper behind you!", "Did I do bad?", and "Hello".

• 
  An overfed sheep.
• 
  A sheared overfed sheep.
• 
  A talking block of coal.
• 
  Super Hostile mode.
• 
  Super Hostile mode again, featuring more mobs.
• 
  Fighting the enderdragon in super hostile mode.
• 
  Fighting the enderdragon in super hostile mode.
• 
  Fighting the enderdragon in super hostile mode.

Videos

The update was intended to be given to the following YouTubers as trailer videos:^[1]

• SethBling – MindCrack SMP – Ep 1: MineCraft 2.0 Pre-Release Review
• BlameTheController – Minecraft 2.0 Beta Ep 1: Multiplayer Dungeon World first
• Guude – Minecraft MindCrack - S4E1 - Minecraft 2.0
• Xisumavoid – Minecraft 2.0 Update Preview
• Keralis – Wife vs. Minecraft - Episode 30: Minecraft 2.0!
• Biffa2001 – Minecraft 2.0 One Life - "Death By Blue Chickens" (April Fools Humor/Comedy!)
• Docm77 – Minecraft 2.0 Closed Beta - Exclusive First Look
• W92Baj – Minecraft 2.0 - You wont believe what has been added - Mindcrack prelease overview.
• Mhykol – Mhykol Mines - Mindcrack - Episode 259 - Minecraft 2.0
• Generikb – Minecraft 2.0 FIRST LOOK!
• Vechs – Ep01 Minecraft 2.0 LP - A Fresh Start
• Paul Soares Jr – Minecraft 2.0 - Mindcrack EXCLUSIVE SNEAK PEEK!
• Pyropuncher – Minecraft 2.0 Footage!
• Pakratt0013 – Pakratt's Collections 55: First Impressions of 2.0
• AvidyaZen – MINECRAFT 2.0 - THE NDA HAS BEEN LIFTED!
• Joe Hills – Minecraft 2.0, now with more abominations!
• Millbee – Preview Of The Minecraft 2.0 Update!
• AnderZel – Minecraft 2.0 Update Pink Witter?
• ElRichMC – Minecraft Review, 2.0 (April Fools Day)

Issues

2.0 is not supported due to being an April Fools' joke, and therefore issues affecting it are closed as "Invalid" in the issue tracker.

• Mooshrooms use the Cow texture instead of the normal one

Trivia

• Starting from 2 April 2013, 00:00, regardless of time zone, the only splash "APRIL FOOLS!" in light purple letters and has a random size, but larger than normal.
• Tinted glass uses filters.
• Lightning can strike mobs through blocks.
• The easier the difficulty, the more challenging super hostile mode is.
  • However, if the player changes the difficulty to Peaceful, the super hostile mode is disabled. This is due to Peaceful difficulty despawning hostile mobs and not allowing them to spawn.
• The textures for tinted glass, diamond chickens, and Redstone Bugs are all coded into the game, and are not found with the other mobs in the texture pack folders.
• The changelog contained a lot of untrue information. Here are some notable examples:
  • It said "Fixed a bug where skeletons would miss their targets on occasion".
  • It said that there were many things added to fishing, including new fish. It proceeded to note that fishing had been removed and if the player had fish in their inventory they would be damaged to discourage fishing.

See also

• Java Edition 15w14a (2015)
• Java Edition 1.RV-Pre1 (2016)
• Java Edition 3D Shareware v1.34 (2019)
• Java Edition 20w14infinite (2020)
• Java Edition 22w13oneBlockAtATime (2022)
• Java Edition 23w13a_or_b (2023)
• Java Edition 24w14potato (2024)

Notes

References