Minecraft’s new version numbering system

In the beginning, there was version 1.0. Then came 1.1, and 1.2, and 1.3, and 1.4 – you can see where I’m going with this can’t you? Minecraft’s version numbers went up incrementally with each major update until we hit 1.21 – the Tricky Trials update – back in June 2024. A lot happened that year, including our announcement that instead of providing one free update during the year, we instead wanted to release content more frequently, called game drops.  

But what did that mean for our version numbering? For a while, it meant we stuck with 1.21. When The Garden Awakens released in December 2024, it was version 1.21.50 on Bedrock Edition, and version 1.21.4 on Java Edition. And then we released Spring to Life. And Chase the Skies. With Mounts of Mayhem coming soon – we felt it was time to update how we version our Minecraft releases to reflect our new game drops strategy. 

The change we’re making 

Going forwards, we’ll be numbering our versions based on the year. So, for both Bedrock and Java Edition, version numbers in the year 2026 will begin with ‘26’!  

Now, Bedrock and Java have different release cadences, so the numbers that follow “26” will be different. There are a few reasons for this (e.g. platform limitations, and the fact that Bedrock has more frequent releases throughout the year) but the shared prefix will make it easier for creators (and players) to know which release is which. 

The difference between version numbering in Bedrock and Java Edition 

While Bedrock and Java will share the same version number (based on the year), they will still differ slightly based on the release number. This is due to a few factors, including platform limitations and the different release frequencies on Bedrock and Java.

Here’s an example based on 2025. In 2025, we released three game drops (Spring to Life, Chase the Skies, and The Copper Age) and we have one more to come – Mounts of Mayhem! By applying the new version numbering system to 2025 as an example, you can get a better idea of where Bedrock and Java are the same, and where they are different!