Overview
Update Aquatic is remembered by players for the oceans and by everyone who writes anything technical for The Flattening, and both reputations are deserved. On the surface, water stopped being an obstacle: swimming got an animation and real speed, dolphins boost you when you swim beside them, conduits grant water breathing and night vision in a radius, and tridents gave water combat a weapon with four enchantments of its own — Loyalty to return it, Riptide to ride it, Channeling for lightning, Impaling for damage. Coral reefs, kelp, sea pickles and fish as catchable mobs filled the water with things to look at and collect. Shipwrecks, ocean ruins and buried treasure chain together into a genuine progression toward the Heart of the Sea. Underneath, this is the largest compatibility break in the game's history. Numeric block IDs were retired for namespaced names, commands were rewritten, and data packs and tags arrived in their modern form. Every command, map, mod and tool written before 1.13 had to be rebuilt from scratch, and a great deal of it never was, which is why so much older community content simply stops at 1.12 and goes no further.
It made the ocean a destination: conduits, tridents, dolphins, underwater ruins and the shipwreck-to-treasure chain. Technically it replaced numeric IDs with namespaced names and rewrote commands, data packs and tags into the forms still used today.
Update Aquatic made the ocean somewhere to explore instead of an obstacle. Swimming animation, dolphins that boost your speed, conduits granting underwater breathing, and tridents gave water traversal an entire toolkit. Buried treasure maps chain shipwrecks into a genuine progression. Technically it was the biggest break in the game's history, retiring numeric block IDs for good and rewriting commands, data packs and tags along with them.
How to get it
Java Edition 1.13 was released on 18 July 2018, with 1.13.2 as the build most servers settled on. Anything written for 1.12.2 or earlier will not work here, because numeric block IDs were replaced entirely by namespaced identifiers.
Tips
- A conduit needs a Heart of the Sea and 8 nautilus shells, then a prismarine frame around it to activate.
- Riptide only works while you are in water or rain, so a trident with it is useless in a dry biome.
- Numeric IDs like 35:14 stopped working in this version — every command must use names such as minecraft:red_wool.
- Read every structure and its loot for the shipwreck chain; the map chest is the whole point.
Version notes
Released 18 July 2018. Rebuilt oceans with five variants, added fish mobs, drowned, dolphins, turtles, phantoms, tridents, conduits, shipwrecks, ocean ruins and buried treasure, and retired numeric IDs in The Flattening.
What it added
- Oceans rebuilt with warm, lukewarm, cold, frozen and deep variants
- Coral reefs, kelp, seagrass and sea pickles
- Fish as real mobs: cod, salmon, pufferfish and tropical fish, catchable in buckets
- Drowned, dolphins, turtles and phantoms
- Tridents with Loyalty, Riptide, Channeling and Impaling
- Conduits, built from a Heart of the Sea and nautilus shells
- Shipwrecks, ocean ruins, buried treasure and icebergs
- The Flattening: block IDs replaced with namespaced names, plus a full command rewrite
Properties
Minecraft 1.13 was released on July 18, 2018 as a major release. It added 8 mobs, 7 blocks and items the site documents, and 3 generated structures.
- New blocks and items
- 7
- New structures
- 3
New mobs
Drowned, Dolphin, Turtle, Cod, Salmon, Pufferfish and 2 more arrived in this release.
New blocks and items
Kelp, Seagrass, Sea Pickle, Conduit, Blue Ice, Dried Kelp Block and 1 more were added, and each has its own page with the recipe, the drops and the break times.
New structures
Ocean Ruins, Shipwreck, and Buried Treasure first generated in 1.13.
- Ocean Ruins — Scattered clusters of sunken buildings, in a sandstone warm-water variant and a stone cold-water variant.
- Shipwreck — A wrecked sailing ship, generated upright, capsized, or broken in two, on the sea floor or beached on the sand.
- Buried Treasure — A single chest buried beneath a beach or shallow sea bed, findable only with a buried treasure map from a shipwreck or ocean ruin.
Where it sits in the release line
1.13 sits 15 of 28 in the release list this site covers, with 1.14 after it and 1.12 before.
Worlds always upgrade forwards and never downgrade: a world opened in a newer version cannot be opened in an older one again, so back it up before the first launch on a new release.
| Version | Name | Released | Type | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
 | Minecraft 1.14 | Village & Pillage | April 23, 2019 | Major release |
 | Minecraft 1.13 ← | Update Aquatic | July 18, 2018 | Major release |
 | Minecraft 1.12 | World of Color Update | June 7, 2017 | Major release |
Guides and tools that cover this
Frequently asked questions
What was The Flattening?
The removal of numeric block and item IDs in favour of namespaced names, along with a full rewrite of commands. It broke essentially every pre-1.13 command block, map and mod.
How do you build a conduit?
Craft one from a Heart of the Sea and eight nautilus shells, then surround it with a frame of prismarine, dark prismarine or sea lanterns — sixteen blocks gives the maximum range.
Where do tridents come from?
Drowned that spawn holding one, which is uncommon. There is no crafting recipe, so a drowned farm is the usual way to collect several.
What did Minecraft 1.13 add?
Oceans rebuilt with warm, lukewarm, cold, frozen and deep variants Coral reefs, kelp, seagrass and sea pickles Fish as real mobs: cod, salmon, pufferfish and tropical fish, catchable in buckets
When was Minecraft 1.13 released?
Java Edition 1.13 was released on July 18, 2018. Bedrock dates for the same content often differ by days or weeks.