Minecraft Bedrock 1.21.80.25 beta and preview patch notes: Happy ghast, Vibrant Visuals, and more

After nearly two weeks of waiting, the latest Minecraft Bedrock 1.21.80.25 beta and preview have finally added happy ghasts to the game. They are further accompanied by dried ghast blocks, baby ghastlings, and a harness to let you ride and control ghasts.

Aside from happy ghasts and their related features, the latest Minecraft beta and preview also introduced the Vibrant Visuals upgrade — a graphical overhaul that brings official shader support to Bedrock Edition. Right now, this feature works only on select devices.

That said, let's go through the patch notes for Minecraft Bedrock 1.21.80.25 beta and preview.

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Minecraft Bedrock 1.21.80.25 beta and preview: Everything you need to know

Experimental Features in Minecraft Bedrock 1.21.80.25 beta and preview

Game Drop 2 2025 Experiments

• Enable the "Drop 2 2025" experimental toggle to test out these new features!

Blocks

Dried Ghast

• Can be found in the Nether in Nether Fossil structures
• Can be crafted with 1 bone block and 8 ghast tears
• When waterlogged it undergoes 3 states over about 20 minutes until it spawns a Ghastling mob
• Makes sounds and shows particles depending on state
• If mined during the waterlogging, it will revert to its "dry" state regardless of what state it has reached during waterlogging
• Will revert states back to its initial "dry" state when it is taken away from being waterlogged, using the same time scale

Mobs

Ghastling

Ghastling is a young version of the Happy Ghast mob.

• Spawns from a Dried Ghast block that has continuously been waterlogged for about 20 minutes.
• After spawning, the Ghastling will try and follow:

1. Players within a 16-block radius or
2. An adult, non-aquatic passive mob (and some neutral mobs) within a 16-block radius
3. If no player or suitable mob is close around the Ghastling will idle around within 32 blocks from its home position (where it spawned or last was interacted with).

• Can be tempted and fed using Snowballs
• Will grow up into a Happy Ghast after about 20 minutes (or faster if fed Snowballs)
• Can be summoned using the command: "/summon happy_ghast ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ minecraft:spawn_baby"

Happy Ghast

The Happy Ghast is a new flying mount that can carry up to four players.

• Spawns from a Ghastling after about 20 minutes (or faster if Ghastling is fed Snowballs)
• Can be equipped with a harness and then be mounted by up to 4 players
• Tempted by Snowballs and Harness. Harness tempting only works if the Happy Ghast is unharnessed
• Has no panic behavior when taking damage
• Cannot be bred
• Slowly regenerates health, with regeneration speeding up during rain, snow or when flying at the same height as clouds are rendered
• The first player that mounts the Happy Ghast will control it, sitting in front of the Happy Ghast, just above its face
• When a player mounts, the goggles on the Happy Ghast go down to cover its eyes, indicating that it now can be controlled
• Other players who mount after the pilot is mounted, are placed in slots on each side of the Happy Ghast, starting clockwise from the "pilot" player
• Pressing crouch button dismounts the player on top of the Happy Ghast
• If the Happy Ghast detects players on top of it, it then ceases all movement and aligns to the closest cardinal horizontal direction
• This happens regardless of it having a harness equipped or not
• 3rd person camera is moved back when player is mounted on the Happy Ghast
• When there are no players mounted or walking on the Happy Ghast, the goggles go up and the Happy Ghast starts to roam around the home position
• If players dismount midair, the Happy Ghast will descend towards the ground before it resumes roaming
• Cannot enter boats
• Idles around within 64 blocks from its home position (where it spawned or last was interacted with)
• If wearing a harness, the Happy Ghast idles closer to the home position (within 32 blocks).
• The Happy Ghast will try to stay close to blocks when roaming on its own
• Known Issue: The Happy Ghast's health is currently set to 40 when it should be 20. We will be addressing this as soon as possible!

Ghast

• Updated Ghast texture

Items

Harness

Harness is a new item that can be equipped on a Happy Ghast to allow players to ride it.

• Crafted out of 3 leather, 2 glass blocks and 1 wool block, the harness will have the same color as the wool block used when crafting
• Can be re-dyed
• Can only be equipped on a Happy Ghast
• Allows up to 4 players to mount the Happy Ghast
• Can be removed from the Happy Ghast using Shears but only when no players are mounted

Commands

• Added the Game Rule command locatorBar to enable or disable the Locator Bar feature

Minecraft Vibrant Visuals upgrade

This week in the Minecraft: Bedrock Beta and Preview update we're excited to share the first look at Vibrant Visuals. The features, lighting, effects, and assets are still in development, so expect things to change and improve over time as we continue to iterate.

Supported devices for this Preview and Beta include Xbox Series X|S, Xbox One, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Android, iOS, and PC.

• Android: Adreno 640, Mali-G68, Mali-G77, or Xclipse 530 or higher
• iOS: A12 or M1 or higher
• PC: Running Minecraft on DX12

Our team is hard at work testing Vibrant Visuals on even more Minecraft: Bedrock Edition devices, and we hope to be able to update this list of supported devices in the future.

To use Vibrant Visuals in a World, you must enable the "Vibrant Visuals" toggle in the Experimental tab in the Create New World or Edit World screens. This will expose Vibrant Visuals as an option in the in-game Video settings Graphics Mode dropdown, which can then be selected alongside the other existing rendering modes.

Presets for choosing between "Favor Visuals" and "Favor Performance" are available in the Video Settings. Specific feature and visual settings can also be adjusted by expanding "Vibrant Visuals Options".

Splitscreen is not supported with Vibrant Visuals and the game will switch to Fancy or Simple rendering if multiple players are joined locally.

Marketplace Add-Ons, Skins, and Persona items will work with Vibrant Visuals, however, Worlds and Texture Packs are not compatible with the new mode at this time.

Known Issues in Minecraft Vibrant Visuals

• Some visual corruptions may exist on certain Android devices, particularly with Mali GPUs
• Surfaces deeper than eight blocks underwater are dark
• Light may leak into underground areas or shadows may pop in and out, especially near cave entrances
• Textures may turn pink after suspend and resume, opening Settings, or exiting world
• Metallic surfaces might appear with some visual bugs in certain conditions
• Emissive surfaces might not glow or appear white in certain conditions

You can report any issues at bugs.mojang.com and please send us your feedback at aka.ms/mcvibrantvisualsfeedback

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Features and Bug Fixes

Character Creator

• Fixed an issue that caused the wrong sized player model to show when using custom skins (MCPE-189739)

Blocks

• Flowers now have the same random offset range and values as Java
• Bamboo, Hanging Roots, Mangrove Propagule, and Nether Sprouts now have the same random offset range and values as Java Edition
• Coral Fans and Coral Plants now have the same random offset range and values as Java Edition
• Double tall plants, like sunflowers, now have the same random offset range and values as Java Edition
• Pointed Dripstone, Tall Grass, and Dry Grass now have the same random offset range and values as Java Edition

Editor

• Editing fields for structures in the structure panel allows saving while a field is being edited

Gameplay

• Fixed a bug that a player can sprint in water faster than swimming

General

• Enable Filter Profanity toggle on Playstation platforms.

Mobs

• Farmer villagers no longer occasionally get stuck when collecting grown crops (MCPE-166344)

Music

• Fixed credits music not playing if entering credits from the settings menu while game is paused. (MCPE-190625)

Recipes

• Fixed a bug where players could still craft unknown recipes when dolimitedcrafting gamerule was on (MCPE-186699)

Vanilla Parity

Items

• Shields now take durability damage from explosions (MCPE-121484)

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Other than these, there are also several technical changes (some finalized and some experimental) in Minecraft Bedrock 1.21.80.25 beta and preview. Those interested can check the official patch notes to learn more about the technical aspects of the new beta and preview.