Minecraft Java Edition 1.20.5

Some really great changes to the technical side of the game.

This update comes with a full refactor of the item system in the game, changing the rather arbitrary NBT format items used to use, to a more modular components approach. As well as being more performant, components are a great benefit to datapackers and map makers, as they now can customise item behaviour in ways previously impossible without modding the game. One example, the "food" component, can now be added to any item, which will make it behave as a food, allowing it to be eaten by the player.

While it does break a lot of old maps / datapacks, this opens the potential to do a lot more with the vanilla game.

Really great seeing the game slowly become more data-driven, and less hard-coded, with each passing update.

Wow, insane amount of work has just been delivered on the data pack side of things. They have been using this data pack as their promised mod "API", but this update really takes it to another level.

Great performance improvements too.