Minecraft Players Warned “Worlds May Be Lost” After Latest Patch (Update)

Update: Mojang says it’s now safe to update your copy of Minecraft: Bedrock Edition to Version 1.20.72.

Original: Minecraft players who play the game through the Xbox app on the PC platform are at risk of losing the worlds they’ve created if they update Minecraft through that app, Mojang warned this week. This announcement was shared early on Friday morning after the game’s latest update went out and players discovered that they were losing a lot more than they were gaining after updating their copies of Minecraft. Fortunately for Minecraft players there’s a workaround that Mojang and Microsoft have found which makes it so that players can still update their games to play on the latest version without losing their worlds in the process.

Mojang issued the warning to players via the developer’s socials and over in the Minecraft and Microsoft forums to hopefully save players from losing their worlds.

“Do not update Minecraft through the Xbox app on PC. If you do, your worlds may be lost,” Mojang said. “We recommend that you run the Gaming Services Repair Tool for PC before installing the Minecraft update.”

Unfortunately for some, they’d already lost their worlds at that point. Posts within those same forums preceded the official announcement by a couple of days and coincided with the release of the March 12th update wherein players said that they’d lost their worlds after updating the game.

Over in the “Known Issues” section regarding issues with various Xbox and PC games, Microsoft advised Minecraft players to take the following steps to update the game via the Gaming Services Repair Tool which should allow them to keep playing without losing anything.

Updating Minecraft via the Gaming Services Repair Tool

• Launch the Xbox app on PC.
• Click your Profile picture.
• Click on Support.
• Click on Gaming Services Repair Tool
• Click on Start Troubleshooting.

This update in question is one that affected primarily wolves with those companions getting double the amount of health that they previously had. The same update also added a couple of experimental features including a Wind Charge ability that lets players fire off projectiles like a Breeze would. Another new, experimental feature was the addition of a new kind of Skeleton called the “Bogged” which fires poisonous arrows but are ultimately a bit easier to take down than the base Skeletons.

And with that update already out, Mojang has moved on to testing some more new Minecraft features including a mace weapon and other changes that are live on the game’s test servers now. Some Minecraft Marketplace changes were also made, too, including a new subscription service where players pay a recurring fee in exchange for bonus content from the Marketplace.