Minecraft 25w17a

25w17a, released on April 22, 2025, is the third 1.21.6 snapshot, and it took the locator bar out of the experimental toggle. The bar sits where the experience bar is and marks the direction of other players, and those markers now switch icons based on distance instead of fading out. Resource packs can set the icons and distances through a waypoint style, and the /waypoint command replaced its fade option with a style argument. The game rule was renamed from useLocatorBar to locatorBar, the name Bedrock Edition uses.

Realms got a reorganized configuration screen with Worlds, Players, Subscription and Settings tabs, plus a Region Preference setting for choosing more precisely which region a Realm starts in. "Close Realm" now reads "Temporarily close Realm", which describes what it actually does.

Happy ghast work continued. A dispenser can now put a harness on a happy ghast, and the dried ghast's rarity went from Uncommon to Common. A new Cloud Distance video setting lets you shorten how far clouds render, handy after 25w16a stretched them to the horizon. A woodland mansion room that had stopped generating, 1x1_b5, appears again. The snapshot fixed 28 bugs.