The Sift Research

The Sift – what's officially known (research notes)

Home · The Sift (research) · Warden Portal · Biomes & Tides · Terrain · Soulshale · Plants · Pallid Wood · Soul Water · Mobs · Items · Advancements · Sounds · Art pipeline · Credits

Updated on 11 November 2026 from the Minecraft Wiki (text CC BY-NC-SA 3.0) and Mojang's announcements. Nothing on this page is from game files of an unreleased version. Facts are marked [vanilla] (the Sift coming to Minecraft Java & Bedrock) or [Dungeons II] (the Sift as it exists today in Minecraft Dungeons II). Anything the mod adds on top of these facts is listed in What the mod adds.

Timeline

Date	What happened	Source
21 Mar 2026	The ancient city's central reinforced-deepslate frame is revealed to be a portal to a new dimension. [Dungeons II]	Dungeons II:The Sift – History
20 Aug 2026	The dimension's name, "The Sift", is announced with a gameplay trailer (it was codenamed "Wellspring"). [Dungeons II]	same
29 Sep 2026	Minecraft Dungeons II releases (Windows, Xbox Series X	S, PS5, Switch / Switch 2). [Dungeons II]
26 Sep 2026	Minecraft LIVE – September 2026: the Sift and the blub are announced for Minecraft Java & Bedrock in 2027. [vanilla]	The Sift, Minecraft LIVE – September 2026, video
3 Nov 2026	Java Edition 26.4 Snapshot 7 adds chiseled soulshale. The block is real in development builds, but Mojang has not confirmed that it belongs to the Sift. [vanilla block; Sift link unconfirmed]	26.4 Snapshot 7

The Sift in vanilla Minecraft (planned for 2027)

• A new dimension – the first since the End. Access in vanilla is unconfirmed. An Ancient City frame appears in Dungeons II, but Mojang has not announced how the Java/Bedrock entrance will work. Xbox Wire
• The reveal shows terrain made of several salmon-coloured blocks (the audio description calls them orange), "tufts of soft orange grasses" under a teal-blue sky, and pale tree-like structures in the distance.
• Players on the wiki uploaded renders of a sift grass block and short / tall sift grass traced from the reveal footage (File:Sift grass block.png, File:Short sift grass.png, File:Tall sift grass.png).
• The only confirmed mob is the blub: a small, rabbit-like, passive mob whose glowing body jiggles as it walks; it squeaks ("creature squeaks" in the captions).
• Chiseled Soulshale appears in 26.4 development builds. Its connection to the Sift is not confirmed. Ground blocks visible in Sift footage still lack official names.

The Sift in Minecraft Dungeons II (released)

From Dungeons II:The Sift, Dungeons II:Ichor and Dungeons II:Blub:

• Ground: mostly red, "healthy" sculk in the meadows and hills; darker sculk in the deserts. The Sift is the original home of the sculk found in the Deep Dark.
• Vegetation: mostly teal, growing on the red sculk; tall sculk trees with pale blue droopy canopies appear in screenshots.
• Liquid – ichor ("ouch water"): a multicoloured liquid that looks like oil on water (green, blue, pink and yellow patches, bubbles, souls swimming in it). It sets Overworlders alight with soulsickness, draining their life and souls, but Sift creatures (blubs, echo golems, sculkers) love bathing in it.
• Tides: a day/night-like cycle of three tides – Flow, Endure and Thrive – which change how souls can be gathered.
• Regions: Singer's Meadow, Lullaby Hills, Humbler Huskland (a sandy desert scattered with giant humbler husks), Ichor Ponds and the Ravines (souls fly out of them).
• Getting there: the Deep Dark Portal in the ancient city, woken by the melody of a note block machine, leads to the Singer's Portal in the Sift.
• Creatures: blubs (soul-engorged blue, meadows with an antenna light, carapace with a shell), trills, prickles, wobbles, echo golems, nuzzles, slabbers, tuners, and hostile sifters and sculkers (hunter, stalker, trapper, scavenger, monarch…), plus the Sculk Monstrosity boss.

Reference photos (10+ of the land, trees, grass, water and creatures)

These images belong to Mojang Studios / Microsoft and are hosted on the Minecraft Wiki. They are not copied into this repository; the links go to each file's wiki page. (A private reference ZIP was made for the project owner – see Art pipeline.)

#	Shows	Wiki file page
1	Vanilla reveal – salmon grass, teal sky, a blub	The Sift.png
2	Vanilla end-of-stream shot – blub close-up	Blub screenshot … Minecraft LIVE
3	Landscape at Flow Tide – pale trees, red sculk, blubs	MCD2 Sift ambience 1
4	Landscape at Endure Tide (night-blue)	MCD2 Sift ambience 2
5	Landscape at Thrive Tide (warm light)	MCD2 Sift ambience 3
6	Singer's Meadow – red mesas, teal grass, pale trees	MCD2 Singer's Meadow
7	Lullaby Hills – terraced red hills	MCD2 Lullaby Hills
8	Humbler Huskland – sand desert with ichor pools	MCD2 Humbler Huskland
9	A sculk tree (pale blue canopy)	MCD2 Sculk Tree
10	The new water: a pool of ichor	MCD2 Pool of ichor
11	Ichor Ponds	MCD2 Ichor Ponds
12	Ichor alcove in Singer's Meadow	MCD2 Singer's Meadow ichor alcove
13	Blubs bathing in ichor	MCD2 Blubs in the Sift
14	A stack of blubs + a meadows blub	MCD2 Blub stack and meadows blub
15	Trills and blubs	MCD2 Trill group
16	Hostile Sift mobs	MCD2 PlayStation promotional screenshot 1
17	The Sculk Monstrosity	MCD2 Sculk Monstrosity Screenshot
18	The Sift portal with echo golems	MCD2 Sift portal and echo golems
19–21	Blub renders: soul-engorged, meadows, carapace	Blub, Meadows, Carapace

Where to hear the creatures' sounds

• Blub (vanilla reveal): the Sounds table on the Blub page has a playable clip – File:Blub sounds Minecraft Live 2026.mp3. The squeaks are also audible in the Minecraft LIVE stream at 24:15.
• Blub (Dungeons II, internal name "jellyBunny"): every in-game sound has a playable file page: idle 1 · 2 · 3 · 4 · 5, jump 1 · 2 · 3, walk 1 · 2 · 3 · 4, land 1 · 2 · 3. The Dungeons II pet blub has its own set (search the wiki for "Sfx mob pet blub").
• The Sift's ambience (tides): the Dungeons II:Sift Tides page lists the captions "Flow Tide", "Endure Tide" and "Thrive Tide"; no audio files are published for them.
• This mod's sounds are all original and listed on Sounds.

What the mod adds vs. what is official

In the mod	Official?	Notes
Dimension The Sift (sift_unbound:the_sift)	Name ✔	Terrain, biomes and sky colours follow the reveal + Dungeons II art; everything else is the mod's guess.
Warden Portal = ancient city frame, woken with an Echo Tuner	Unconfirmed for vanilla	Ancient city frame exists, but using it as a Sift gateway is confirmed in Dungeons II only. Echo Tuner is mod original.
Soul Water that drains health (Soulsick)	Inspired ✔	The mod's version of ichor ("ouch water"). Blubs, wisps, prowlers and the warden are immune.
Sift Grass Block, Short/Tall Sift Grass	Visuals only	The pink/orange grass is visible in the vanilla preview; names are descriptive fan labels, not confirmed Mojang names.
Soulshale (+ cobbled, polished, bricks, chiseled…)	Sift tie unconfirmed	Chiseled Soulshale appears in 26.4 tests; the rest of this stone family is the mod's interpretation.
Sift Sculk, Teal Sprouts, Husk Shell	Inspired ✔	Red sculk, teal plants and the husks of Humbler Huskland.
Pallid wood set, Lullaby Bloom, Soul Shards	✘	Mod originals (names invented).
Flow / Endure / Thrive tides	Names ✔	Implemented as a 24 000-tick sky/fog/light cycle; Endure is dark enough for monsters.
Blub (soul, meadows, carapace)	✔	Original model, textures and sounds.
Soul Wisp, Sculk Prowler	✘	Mod originals inspired by the souls and sculkers of the Sift.
Sifter, Humbler and Monarch armor	Dungeons II names only	Twelve mod-crafted, wearable survival items with original sprites and balance values; Armor & Gear. No vanilla armor announced.