Chase the Skies

Chase the Skies is a game drop released on June 17, 2025, as Java Edition 1.21.6 and Bedrock Edition 1.21.90. It introduces happy ghasts which can be ridden with harnesses, improved mechanics for leads, craftable saddles, new background music, the "Tears" music disc, the player locator bar, as well as Vibrant Visuals in Bedrock Edition. The first features of this game drop were revealed at Minecraft LIVE – March 2025.

During development, the update was referred to as Summer Drop 2025 and Drop 2 2025 as the name of the Bedrock Edition experiment. The final name of the update was revealed in a minecraft.net article on June 1, 2025.^[2]

Experimental features for the update were released prior to the finalized release as part of Bedrock Edition 1.21.80.

Dried ghast

• Naturally generates next to Nether fossils in soul sand valleys.
  • Makes dry sounds when place on top of soul sand or soul soil.
• Can be obtained through bartering with piglins.
• Crafted with soul sand surrounded with 8 ghast tears.
• When put in water, the block's appearance changes 3 times depending on the time spent hydrated, changing its facial expression. After this, it becomes a ghastling.
  • Breaking the dried ghast or removing water from it will cause it to revert back to its original state.

Happy ghast spawn egg

• Used to spawn a happy ghast.

Harness

• Used to pilot a happy ghast.
• Crafted with leather, glass, and wool.
• Comes in 16 colors based on the color of the wool.

Music discs:

• "Lava Chicken" music disc^{[note 1]}
  • Obtained by killing a baby zombie while it is riding a chicken (a chicken jockey).
  • The music was composed by Hyper Potions.

• "Tears" music disc
  • Dropped by ghasts when killed by a player-deflected fireball.
  • The music was composed by Amos Roddy.

• Added a new painting based on the one in A Minecraft Movie by the artist Sarah Boeving:^{[note 2]}

Picture	Name	Size	Artist
	Dennis	3x3	Sarah Boeving

Happy ghast

• A passive version of the ghast, which can be equipped with a harness and ridden by up to four players.
• Can be stood on, similar to a shulker.
• Can be temped with a harness when not worn or snowballs.
• It can regenerate its health slowly.
  • Can be healed faster when on rain, snowing or on cloud level.
• Baby version is called a ghastling.
  • Have a unique texture and sounds.
  • Spawned after a dried ghast gets hydrated in water.
    • Does not drown, unlike their adults.
  • Follows nearby adult happy ghasts, players, villagers, and any passive or neutral land animals until they get bored.
  • Can be fed snowballs to speed up their growth.

Lead

• Now produce a sound when snap.

Short and Tall dry grass

• Now emits ambient sounds when above 2 sand, red sand, terracotta or stained terracotta blocks.

Locator bar

• The locator bar is a new UI element on the player HUD that displays the direction of other players in the world.
• When the locatorBar game rule is enabled and there are multiple players in a world, the locator bar will appear on-screen for each player, replacing the experience bar. The player's experience level will still be visible as before above the locator bar.
• The locator bar will display colored indicators when the camera is facing within 120 degrees towards another player. If another player is 30 degrees above or below the camera's viewport (the screen), an up or down arrow will be displayed.
• Players in Spectator mode are not visible on the locator bar.
• A player can hide and prevent their indicator from appearing on the locator bar via the following means:
  • Sneaking.
  • Wearing a head or a carved pumpkin.
  • Being under the Invisibility effect.
• Can be disabled by map creator or server operator.
• The locator bar can be used to locate entities other than the player, controlled by waypoint_transmit_range and waypoint_receive_range attributes.
• The locator bar waypoint styles can be changed by /waypoint command.‌^{[JE only]}
• The locator bar is in place of the EXP bar, but the EXP bar will show for a short time after collecting EXP.

Vibrant Visuals‌^{[BE only]}

• The new default graphics setting on supported devices, placed above the Simple and Fancy settings.
• Adds pixel-perfect shadows, directional lighting, water caustics, and many more graphical features.
• Planned for release on Java Edition at a later date.

Lilypad

• Composed by Amos Roddy.
• Plays in frozen peaks and groves.

Below and Above

• Composed by Amos Roddy.
• Plays in cherry groves.

O's Piano

• Composed by Amos Roddy.
• Plays in lush caves.

Broken Clocks

• Composed by Amos Roddy.
• Plays in forests.

Fireflies

• Composed by Amos Roddy.
• Plays in deserts.
• All of the above songs also play on the title screen when you start the game.

Tears

• Composed by Amos Roddy.
• Plays when inserting a "Tears" music disc into a jukebox.

Lava Chicken^{[note 1]}

• Composed by Hyper Potions.
• Plays when inserting a "Lava Chicken" music disc into a jukebox.

Sand and Red sand

• No longer emits windy sounds.

Terracotta and Stained terracotta

• No longer emit ambient sounds.

Carrot

• Can now be used to tame, heal, and grow horses, donkeys, and mules.

Lead

• Is now crafted with 5 string, with the former slimeball in its recipe replaced by an additional piece of string.

Ingredients	Crafting recipe
String	2

• Entities can now be attached to other entities with leads.
• Can now be removed from entities using shears, including dispensers containing shears.
• Snapping distance has been increased to 12 blocks.

Leather

• Can now be found in monster room, ancient city, desert pyramid, jungle pyramid and stronghold altar chests in quantities 1-5, replacing saddles.

Saddle

• Can now be crafted with 3 leather and 1 iron ingot.

Ingredients	Crafting recipe
Leather + Iron Ingot

• Can now be removed from mobs wearing them by using shears on the mob.
  • Cannot be removed this way from ravagers or mobs with riders.
  • Can no longer be equipped using dispensers.
• No longer found in chests in monster rooms, ancient cities, desert pyramids, jungle pyramids and in stronghold altar chests.

Shears

• Can now remove saddles, horse armor, harnesses and carpets from mobs.
• Can now cut leads.
  • They cannot be removed if the mob has a rider.
  • They cannot be removed if the player is crouching.
• Saddles cannot be removed from ravagers.
• Dispensers with shears cannot remove saddles, horse armor, harnesses and carpets equipped on mobs.

Spawn eggs

• Changed blaze and breeze spawn egg sizes to more accurately represent the mobs.

Splash potions

• Now have a duration that varies based on distance from the impact point.
  • If a splash potion directly hits an entity, the entity receives the full duration and potency of the effect.
    • However, if the entity is further away from the impact, the effect's duration and potency decrease linearly.

Ghast

• The resolution of the ghast texture has been doubled to match the new happy ghasts.
• Now drops a ”Tears” music disc when player kills it using a deflected fireball.

Clouds

• The texture for cloud distribution has been changed.
  • Now has more, smaller gaps between the clouds.
  • Clouds are of a more consistent, oval shape than before.
  • Now has a creeper face made up of clouds in a certain section of the texture.
• Cloud render distance has been increased.

• 1.21.7 added the "Dennis" painting variant and the "Lava Chicken" music disc.
• 1.21.8 was a minor hotfix update.

• 1.21.91 was released to fix bugs related to 1.21.90.
• 1.21.92 was released to fix bugs related to 1.21.91.
• 1.21.93 added the "Lava Chicken" music disc.
• 1.21.94 was released to fix bugs related to 1.21.92 and 1.21.93.
• 1.21.100 was a minor update which adds "The Void" flat world preset and experimental features for The Copper Age.
• 1.21.101 was released to fix bugs related to 1.21.100.

To promote the release of the drop, a contest was held to give away ten travel-themed prizes. These included a hammock, a blanket, a weekender bag, Crocs, a thermos, and a creeper-themed cooler bag.^[3] To participate, players were tasked with taking a screenshot of gameplay, possibly using Vibrant Memories. Up to five photos per day were eligible.^[4]

The day following the drop's release, an add-on was published to promote the introduction of Vibrant Visuals. Developed by Oreville Studios, the add-on allows players to immortalize specific locations and memories in their worlds.

To promote the release of the drop, an advertising campaign began on June 20, 2025, featuring two community challenges. For Bedrock players, they earned the two items. For Java players, a skin pack was also released to reward progress.^[5]

Name	Image		Type	Rarity	Obtaining
	Icon	Render
Ghast Rider Floatie			Outerwear	Rare	Require players to spawn 50 Million happy ghasts.
Happy Ghast Pilot Gear			Headwear		Require players to feed 1 Million ghastlings with snowballs.

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  Key art with characters.
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  Key art background.
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  Key art of four characters riding a happy ghast.
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  A cropped version of the key art.
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  Pre-release key art.
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  A textless version of the alternate key art.
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  Page 1 of the launch pamphlet, announcing the release platforms.
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  Page 2 of the launch pamphlet, listing off biomes and the locator bar.
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  Page 3 of the launch pamphlet, listing off structures and snacks.
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  Page 4 of the launch pamphlet, listing off activities.
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  Page 5 of the launch pamphlet, listing off items and the happy ghast.
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  Page 6 of the launch pamphlet, listing off "souvenirs".
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  Sunny preparing for launch.
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  Sunny's laptop confirming the drop's release.
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  Community challenges rewards.

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  Three photographs of happy ghasts.
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  The three new types of ghasts introduced.
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  Ari leashing mobs, while holding a snowball to attract a ghastling.
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  A happy ghast and a ghastling in a field.
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  Each stage of hydration.
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  Zuri building on a happy ghast.
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  A chuckle of happy ghasts flying in mountains.
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  Ari looking at a dried ghast in a soul sand valley next to a nether fossil.
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  Ari riding a horse while followed by a happy ghast leashed to a camel.
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  A similar but distinct scenario.
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  A ghastling next to water. Ripples and reflections can be seen.
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  A swamp during sunset. The right image shows the reflection of the sunset in Vibrant Visuals.
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  Ditto, but with a desert (left), stony shore (top), and badlands (right).
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  Ditto, but with a mangrove swamp.

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