1.13

Minecraft 1.13, Update Aquatic, overhauled the oceans with coral reefs, fish, dolphins, and tridents, and re-engineered the game's internal data format. It was released on July 18, 2018 as one of the game's numbered feature updates.

At its heart, 1.13 is bringing the oceans to life. The standout addition is living oceans with coral, fish, dolphins, turtles, and the trident weapon. Its technical rewrite, nicknamed 'The Flattening', replaced numeric block IDs with namespaced IDs.

This page breaks 1.13 down into 12 headline features, 4 notable gameplay or technical changes and 2 documented fixes, and a plain-language summary of why the update matters. Java Edition is the original PC version of Minecraft, available on Windows, macOS, and Linux.

The most talked-about part of the Update Aquatic update is living oceans with coral, fish, dolphins, turtles, and the trident weapon.

In full, 1.13 adds complete ocean overhaul with coral reefs, dolphins, Turtles, and sea turtle eggs, fish mobs (Cod, Salmon, Pufferfish, Tropical Fish), tridents with Riptide, Loyalty, and Channeling, drowned (underwater zombie variant), shipwrecks and buried treasure, underwater ruins, and conduit for underwater breathing, with several further additions listed on the right. Together these are what make Update Aquatic worth updating to, and each appears in the Major Features list on this page.

Beyond new content, 1.13 reworks how parts of the game behave. The notable changes include commands completely reworked and modernized, Block IDs replaced entirely by namespaced IDs, water physics overhauled (waterlogging), and debug stick added for mapmakers. Adjustments of this kind reshape day-to-day play for existing worlds as much as new ones.

On the bug-fixing side, 1.13 resolves massive internal data format changes (Flattening) and fixed hundreds of legacy bugs. Fixes like these remove long-standing frustrations without altering how the game is meant to be played.

To play Minecraft 1.13 on Java Edition, open the official Minecraft Launcher, select the Java Edition tab, and use the version dropdown beside the Play button to choose 1.13. As a full release it appears in the standard release list by default.

Before updating an existing world to 1.13, it is good practice to copy the save folder first. Worlds from 1.12 upgrade in place, but newly generated chunks will use 1.13's world generation while older chunks keep their original terrain.