Upcoming Minecraft update marks the beginning of villager trading rebalance

While developing Minecraft's upcoming game drop, Mojang made a major change to how cartographer villagers will trade with players. The current changes are slight, however, it is part of a much bigger villager trading overhaul introduced in 2023.

With the upcoming game drop, Mojang has gradually started implementing the villager trading rebalance feature in stable builds.

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How the villager trading rebalance overhaul begins with Minecraft's next game drop

What is villager trade rebalance

Villager trade rebalance is a major trading list overhaul in Minecraft (Image via Sportskeeda Gaming/Mojang)

After Mojang added villagers and their jobs, they never changed the existing trades each professional villager offered. The developers only added new items to villagers' trading lists during later updates.

In 2023, Mojang decided to bring in an experimental feature under which they brought major changes to the villager trade list, particularly to librarians, cartographers, armorers, and wandering traders. These changes included adjusting trade prices and even making certain trades exclusive to villagers from particular biomes. This overhaul feature was called the villager trade rebalance.

While Mojang planned to bring these changes through a previous installment, they kept that decision on hold, as many new trades hampered players' progression and gameplay styles.

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Minecraft's upcoming game drop brings changes in cartographer villager and wandering trader trades

Next game drop will bring cartographer villager and wandering trader trade changes (Image via Sportskeeda Gaming/Mojang)

In snapshot 25w07a and beta/preview 1.21.70.23, Mojang revealed that the next game drop will bring changes to cartographers and wandering trader trades. In fact, the developers picked up the changes from the base villager trade rebalance feature and made some minor tweaks. This is what they will release during the next game drop.

This clearly indicates that Mojang is pushing the villager trade rebalance feature out of the experimental section to stable versions of Minecraft.

Cartographers will soon be able to offer seven new locator maps. These locator maps will be of five villages in different biomes, jungle temples, and swamp huts. Cartographers from a certain biome will only be able to give locator maps of two particular villages, and one locator map of either a jungle temple or swamp hut. These trades will unlock at the apprentice level of a cartographer.

On the other hand, wandering traders are also set to receive major changes. For starters, they will be able to buy simple items like water buckets, water bottles, haybales, and so on for emeralds. This allows players to quickly earn a few emeralds whenever these mobs spawn. Furthermore, their existing trade prices have been adjusted, and some new items have been added to the list.

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