Minecraft 1.20 Trails & Tales update makes desert wells useful

Minecraft 1.20 is going to be a major update. Not only does it introduce a new mob and a lot of new gameplay features, it's also introducing a new structure. Trail Ruins will be in the update, and they'll be a popular destination when they arrive.

But that's arguably not even the biggest change coming. Within 1.20, there are a lot of new things. The biggest change is to a longstanding part of the game: desert wells.

Desert wells have been a structure in the game since Minecraft Java Edition 1.2.1. After over a decade, they're finally being useful for something other than water.

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Minecraft 1.20 introducing way for desert wells to be useful

Desert wells were one of the most frustrating structures in the entire game. Almost nothing is worse than exploring a vast, barren desert and seeing a desert well. Most players will think it's part of either a desert temple or a village and will be disappointed to learn it's not.

Not only is it not those great structures, it's pretty useless. There's nothing in it except a block of water. Once Minecraft 1.20 arrives, it won't be useless.

The Trails & Tales update is going to introduce archaeology, which brings in new items. The brush will be used to sift through suspicious sand and gravel to find items like pottery shards.

Now, all desert wells have suspicious sand in them. Players who find a well can do something with them now instead of angrily passing them by.

Not only that, but each set of suspicious sand has a different loot table, so desert well sand will be unique.

It can have the following:

• Arms Up pottery shard (25% chance)
• Brewer pottery shard (25% chance)
• Brick (12.5% chance for one)
• Emerald (12.5% chance for one)
• Stick (12.5% chance for one)
• Suspicious stew (12.5% chance for one)

Each stack will have one loot item, so finding a desert well can yield some pretty interesting results. Now, players might seek out a desert well instead of trying to avoid them.

Desert wells can have suspicious sand (Image via Mojang)

Additionally, the pottery shards found here can only be found here. This makes the pot that they make impossible to craft without finding at least a few desert wells.

The desert was already arguably the best biome for Minecraft structures. It has desert temples, which might be the best structure in the entire game. It also has biome-specific villages, which is another bonus for going there.

Desert wells made the biome have three structures in total, but now they're all three pretty good. The 1.20 update is expected to arrive sometime soon and finally, desert wells won't be utterly useless. The desert just got a lot more interesting.