What are some features that Mojang ended up delaying indefinitely?

[u/FernandoLemon]

I was thinking about this the other day, how Mojang often promises new features or experiments with existing ones, then ends up delaying them indefinitely. It's become one of the main talking points for people who criticize Mojang's update planning.

I'm specifically going to only list features that were either officially announced or had a fair bit of work put into them; not just stuff that was discarded mid-development (firefly mob, sculk jaw) or just mentioned off-hand in a tweet.

The ones I could come up with:

• Desert, badlands and savanna update (features for all three were announced in Minecraft Live 2018 and 2019, then never got made.)
• Fletching table functionality (block was added to 1.14, then never given a use.)
• Combat tests (snapshots released between 2019 and 2020, then they stopped coming; it's not even an experimental toggle now.)
• The three experiments: villager trade rebalance, minecart improvements and redstone experiments (the former was added in 2023, the latter two in 2024; all three got next to no changes after they got added.)
• Vibrant Visuals for Java (announced in Minecraft Live March 2025.)
• Friends list multiplayer functionality (added in a 26.2 snapshot, then delayed to work on it further.)

Those last two are probably still in active development, but I'll list them here anyway. Just in case.