Just today, Mojang Studios finally released their newest update yet, titled “The Copper Age”. Teased as 2025’s Fall Drop, this update follows Minecraft’s newest trend of seasonal drops per year, starting with Spring to Life (Spring) and Chase the Skies (Summer).
After many months of teasers and snapshots, with built up anticipation, the update is finally here!
Here is an unofficial guide to “The Copper Age”, where we will go over all of its new and exciting features.
Copper Golem
Originally announced in the now-defunct Mob Vote of 2021, the Copper Golem lost to the Allay. After years of fans asking Mojang Studios to bring back the mobs lost in the infamous Mob Vote, they finally listened to their audience.
Copper Golems serve as helpers to the player. They will take items from the copper chests, and sort them into regular chests. The sorting will depend on the type of items that are being sorted (wood, cobblestone, food, etc).
They can be crafted in two ways: Placing a copper chest (where the golem spawns on top of it) and one carved pumpkin placed on top of a copper block. The golem’s oxidization will depend on the chest/block’s level of oxidization, from where it originated.
But just like any copper block, copper golems will also oxidize, from time and lightning strikes. They can be waxed with honeycombs to prevent such oxidization. And they cannot take damage from lightning.
Once the golem is fully oxidized, it turns into a copper golem statue, freezing in a random pose. The player can either use it for decoration or make it move again.
The copper golem is the only new mob being added to The Copper Age. It is a feature that fans have anticipated for so many years, after its potential was seemingly wasted after the Mob Vote.
Copper Chests
This is the first new and unique chest variant, right after trapped chests and ender chests. It is crafted by adding one chest in the middle, and eight iron ingots around the chest, kind of like how one would craft a regular chest.
Just like regular copper blocks, it oxidized over time, but it can be waxed with honeycombs to prevent further oxidization.
Copper Tools
This is a feature that fans have always wanted, and was introduced in the form of mods. But now it’s finally here. For years, fans have always used wood, stone, iron, gold, and diamond as the main materials for tools and swords. And then the Nether Update in 2020 finally introduced new Netherite tools.
After years of just the six main materials for tools, copper gets added to the slowly growing list. They work like any regular tool. The durability level is between stone and iron, and it’s fairly common to make. For players who are early on in the game, and can’t find iron right after stone, copper can be used as a temporary alternative, especially for those whose inventories fill up very quickly from so many stacks of raw copper.
Unlike regular copper blocks, copper tools (as well as armor) does not oxidize, and remains in its original orange form.
Copper Armor
Just like copper tools, copper armor also serves as not only an alternative to iron early on, but it adds onto the growing list of variants for armor.
Copper armor is essential early on when considered what lays below the durability level. Leather armor tends to be impossible to find, especially since they mainly come from cows, where the drop chances are low. And chainmail is only obtained through villager trades. With copper armor, however, it can help players defend themselves easier against mob attacks, especially when they’re just starting out in survival mode.
This new copper armor also comes in the form of horse armor as well. While there has been no horse armor for Netherite, players always had the variants in the form of leather, iron, gold, and diamond for a very long time, dating back to the Horse Update from 2013.
After many years of no changes to horse armor, there is now copper horse armor, to add onto the trend.
Copper Nugget
Just like with the horse armor, nuggets have remained untouched for years, limited to only iron and gold nuggets. But true to its major update, it only makes sense for copper to receive the same treatment.
It works just like regular nuggets. They are obtained by placing one copper ingot into the crafting grid, to create 9 nuggets. Or a copper tool or armor can be placed in the furnace to create one nugget.
Copper nuggets also have their own usages, in the form of crafting. It can be used to make copper chains, copper lanterns, and copper torches.
This is similar to how iron has always been used to make its own type of materials, like chains and lanterns. Now copper is expanding on that, with its own variants of iron items.
Copper Bars
Alongside new chains and lanterns, the bars receive the same treatment. Originally introduced in Beta 1.8’s famous and first major “Adventure Update”, bars have always been in the form of iron, and that has become the norm.
Now, copper is getting its own variants. It dons its orange color, and it also oxidizes, unless waxed with a honeycomb.
Unlike iron bars, which spawn naturally in strongholds, copper bars don’t appear in trial chambers. So the player has to craft them, by placing six copper ingots horizontally across the 3x3 grid, at the top.
So far, this is the only copper variant of such items that does not require copper nuggets for crafting.
Copper Chain
The copper chain is among the many copper items which are part of the ongoing trend of items as copper variants. Just like with copper bars and lanterns, copper chains serve as the copper version of iron chains, a relatively new item introduced in 1.16’s Nether Update in 2020.
They are crafted using one copper ingot in between two copper nuggets, in a vertical line on the 3x3 crafting grid.
And like the other copper items and blocks discussed so far, copper chains can oxidize, unless waxed with a honeycomb.
Copper Lantern
Lanterns, which were new and introduced in the major Village and Pillage update, were a unique source of light, with blue soul lanterns as its only other variant. After remaining untouched for years after that, lanterns now appear in the form of copper, but this time with a green glowing hue, along with its orange color.
Just like with regular (and soul) lanterns, copper lanterns can be crafted with one copper torch in the middle, surrounded by eight copper nuggets.
But of course, copper lanterns can oxidize as well. But it can be waxed with a honeycomb. However, unlike copper bulbs, where the light decreases as it oxidizes, the light level will still remain the same, no matter the level of
oxidization.
Copper Torch
The copper torch works similar to the copper lantern. It is another torch variant, after regular torches, redstone torches, and soul torches. They can be crafted like a regular torch, but with a copper nugget on top of the coal/charcoal.
But unlike the other copper items revealed so far, copper torches do not oxidize, but instead, give off the green light, just like how soul torches give off blue light. They can be used to make copper lanterns.
Lightning Rod Oxidization Stages
The lightning rods have always been associated with copper since the mineral was added back in 2021. But they never oxidized like regular blocks did.
Today that changes. Now, lightning rods can oxidize, but of course, can be waxed to prevent such oxidization, like the other copper blocks and items.
Shelf
Now that all the new copper materials have been covered, the next big thing is the shelves.
They come in the many colors of wood blocks, and can be crafted using six stripped logs, horizontally across the top and bottom.
They can be used for both decoration and architecture, as well as displaying items on the wall. But unlike the classic item frame, shelves are more decorative and functional, in the form of redstone.
When a shelf gets powered by redstone, the shelf texture (on the front) changes. Additionally, it can swap certain items in the player’s hotbar, from 3 to 9 hotbar slots. Each shelf can hold up to three items.
New Dye Textures
Last, but not least, the dye textures have been updated. Before that, their texture was very simple. Sometimes it was a plain oval and other times it looked like a jumble.
But now, the dye textures are easier to recognize in the inventory (both creative and survival). Along with the dye bowl on the bottom, each color has its own texture. This was made for the purpose of helping colorblind people who have a hard time telling which color is which.
Now that this update is finally out, many fans who have waited with anticipation now have the opportunity to really apply this to the game, and explore the many new opportunities with copper.
With the upcoming Winter Drop of 2025, titled “Mounts of Mayhem” expected to release later in the year, fans are more than excited for more copper uses and creative updates to come.
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