Minecraft Beta & Preview 26.70.24: Invisible Armor, Ice Balls, Switch 2 & More
What Changed
Minecraft Beta & Preview 26.70.24 is the latest work-in-progress build for both Bedrock editions (Preview on Xbox, PlayStation, Windows, and iOS; Beta on Android via Google Play). It carries the fourth content drop of 2026 and a wide sweep of bug fixes across blocks, mobs, audio, accessibility, and platform support.
The headlining additions and changes include:
- Invisible Armor, a new world setting lets players hide their equipped armor cosmetically. Hidden armor flashes visible for five seconds after taking damage, keeping gameplay fair. Elytra, mob heads, and carved pumpkins are always shown regardless of the setting. A matching
invisibleArmorgame rule is also available for server operators. - Ice Ball nerfs, Ice Balls thrown by players no longer deal critical hits, bringing PvP balance more in line with expectations.
- Freezing Mob Effect particles now rotate the same way as Java Edition, closing a long-standing visual gap between the two versions.
- Undead mob immunity, every undead mob (Zombies, Skeletons, Phantoms, Wither, etc.) is now immune to both Powder Snow freezing and the Freezing status effect, which makes thematic sense.
- Frostbite attack animation fixed when holding a Trident, and Snow Golems and Frostbites now show correct closed captions for projectile sounds.
- Creative inventory ordering, Calcite, Packed Ice Bricks, Snow Bricks, Cinnabar, and Sulfur block sets are repositioned to sit alongside their logical neighbours, making building sessions much tidier.
- Explosion drop rates, Calcite, Packed Ice Bricks, Snow Bricks, Shelf Mushrooms, and Red Shrubs now drop fewer items from non-TNT explosions, consistent with how most other blocks behave.
- Cauldron interaction fix, players can now place blocks against Cauldrons and use items (eating, charging bows, etc.) while targeting a Cauldron without sneaking, resolving two long-standing annoyances.
- Nintendo Switch 2 support, Joy-Con Mouse Mode is live, with a dedicated settings page for customisation, and data migration crashes from Switch to Switch 2 have been fixed.
- Vibrant Visuals expansion, the enhanced renderer now works on more Android devices, including Mali Ultra GPU hardware.
- Ray tracing fix, Redstone torches now render their transparent texture areas correctly when ray tracing is enabled.
- Double Slab sounds, Nether Brick and Red Nether Brick Double Slabs, plus several other slabs, have been corrected to play the right sounds and display the right subtitles.
- Repeating Command Block bug fixed, switching from "Always Active" to "Needs Redstone" no longer triggers an extra unintended execution.
- UI and stability, a Windows startup hang at 73%, several crashes, broken "Swap Off-hand" keybinding, and a handful of Marketplace/Dressing Room display issues have all been resolved.
Why It Matters
This build is part of Drop 4 of 2026, Mojang's structured content cadence that bundles themed features into cohesive seasonal releases. Even as a beta, the sheer breadth of changes, from PvP balance to accessibility captions to Creative inventory tidiness, signals that this drop is nearly feature-complete and heading toward a stable release soon. The invisible armor setting in particular is the kind of quality-of-life toggle that roleplay servers and family worlds have been requesting for years.
Java and Bedrock
This build is Bedrock-only; there is no corresponding Java snapshot released alongside it. The Freezing particle alignment brings Bedrock's visual output closer to Java, which is a small but meaningful step toward parity. Java players should watch for a separate snapshot announcement covering Drop 4 features on that side of the game.
For Server Owners
Two changes deserve your attention if you run any kind of managed Bedrock server:
- The new
invisibleArmorgame rule gives you per-world control over the feature via commands, handy for roleplay or minigame worlds where cosmetics matter. - The Repeating Command Block fix is important for any world that relies on command-block automation; test your existing contraptions after updating to make sure timing has not shifted.
- Explosion drop-rate normalisation for the new block sets may affect any resource economy or farm balancing you have designed around those materials.
For Parents
The invisible armor toggle is a fun personalisation feature your child will likely want to explore, rest assured that armor protection still works exactly the same way whether it is visible or not, and the brief five-second reveal on damage means sneaky players cannot hide their gear in PvP to gain an unfair advantage. The accessibility improvements (better closed captions for more block and mob sounds) also make the game more inclusive for players who rely on those cues. Overall, this update does not change the core experience, it simply polishes and refines it.
For Players
Here are the bits you will actually care about:
- Style your look, turn on Invisible Armor in world settings and show off your skin without a chestplate ruining the aesthetic. Your armor still protects you!
- Ice Balls are no longer instant-crit machines, fights feel a bit fairer now.
- Undead mobs laugh at Powder Snow. Don't try to freeze Zombies anymore, it simply won't work.
- Placing blocks near Cauldrons is finally smooth, no more awkward crouching just to put a block down.
- Switch 2 players can now use Joy-Con Mouse Mode for a whole new way to look around and build.
- Music discs now keep playing for split-screen players even when their co-op partner wanders out of range or disconnects, no more sudden silence mid-groove.
Do SNT Kingdoms Need an Update?
No action required, and SNT kingdoms cannot connect to 26.x clients yet anyway. Here is the full picture:
SNT Gaming kingdoms run on Paper 1.21.11 backends behind a Velocity proxy, with Geyser + Floodgate handling Bedrock crossplay. Version 26.x of Minecraft uses Mojang's new year-based versioning scheme, and PaperMC, Velocity, and the Via family of plugins have not yet migrated to support it. That means a Bedrock client running Preview 26.70.24 cannot join an SNT kingdom at this time, this is expected and applies to all 26.x previews and betas until the ecosystem catches up.
Bedrock players on stable release versions (the ones that map to 1.21.x numerically) continue to connect through Geyser without any issues, and Java players on profiles 1.13 through 1.21.11 are covered by ViaVersion and ViaBackwards as always. All six game worlds, Survival, SharedLife, RandomLoot, Chaos, Spleef, and Rivals, remain fully playable. We are watching the PaperMC and Velocity roadmaps closely and will update kingdoms as soon as 26.x support lands in the server ecosystem.