What do glow squids do in Minecraft 1.18 update?

Minecraft 1.18 has now landed, and it's proving to be just as popular as expected, with many Minecrafters worldwide enjoying this massive game update.

In terms of new content, this update mainly focused on new world generation mechanics, allowing for impressive new mountains and caves to be generated.

These weren't the only changes made, however. Mojang also made many minor changes to the game, one of which was how the Glow Squid could be found in the wild.

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What do glow squids do in the 1.18 Minecraft "Caves and Cliffs" part 2 update?

Glow squids were added initially in the Minecraft 1.17 "Caves and Cliffs" part 1 update earlier this year. This mob was the infamous winner of the Minecraft Live 2020 mob vote, held on Twitter on the day of the event.

In terms of the core functionality for the Glow Squid, not much has changed in the latest Minecraft 1.18 update. Glow Squids still glow in the dark, look the same, and still drop glow ink sacs when killed.

In terms of what was changed, however, was how this mob could spawn in the world. In Minecraft 1.17, when the Glow Squid was initially added, it could only spawn inside a region that was below Y = 63. The region also needs to be in complete darkness and have stone blocks within a five-block radius to spawn.

The function of a glow squid is to illuminate large bodies of water (Image via Minecraft Forums)

As for Minecraft 1.18, not too much has changed, but there is one minor change to how the mob spawns. While the Glow Squid will still only spawn in complete darkness and requires stone blocks within a five-block radius, it will now only spawn below Y = 30 instead of the previous Y = 63.

All in all, this isn't too much of a change, but it does make sense due to the initial idea for Glow Squids to spawn mostly in deep underground caves. These were not present in the Minecraft 1.17 update, so Y = 63 was more of an appropriate value.

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Will Glow Squid farms from Minecraft 1.17 work in the 1.18 update?

The short answer is most likely not. Most old farms would be designed to work in different circumstances, so they need to be adjusted to suit the new updated spawning conditions.