Minecraft 26.2 shipped on 16/06/2026. Which version to build against, which Java to target, why 1.21 code stops compiling, plus the real server numbers.
Minecraft 26.2, released 16/06/2026 as Chaos Cubed, is the current version under Minecraft's new calendar versioning. For a live server, target Paper 26.1.2 instead: 26.2 has no stable build. And keep 1.21 support, because the 1.21 family still runs on far more servers than 26.x does.
26.2, released on 16/06/2026 under the name Chaos Cubed. The game now uses calendar versioning: the first number is the year, the second is which release of that year it is.
Because the 1.x numbering was replaced by calendar versioning. What follows the 1.21 family is the 26.x line, starting with 26.1.
Not automatically. Paper 26.x ships Adventure 5, which removed deprecated APIs, so code written for 1.21 may no longer compile. An older plugin has to be rebuilt against the 26.x API and often edited too.