The big “Caves and Cliffs” update for Minecraft has been revealed. Look forward to exciting new caves where new mobs are waiting. You can also prove your skills as an archaeologist.
What’s new in Minecraft? During the Minecraft Live transmission on October 3rd, the Minecraft team presented the next big update for Minecraft. Following the extensive Nether Update in June 2020, the team aims to take another big step and completely overhaul a major theme of the game: caves and mountains.
- The new update for Minecraft is called “Caves and Cliffs”
- The release is planned for summer 2021
- Caves and mountains are the focus of this update
- A Christmas update has been omitted
What changes are included in the Caves & Cliffs Update?
The update combines two wishes from players. Improved caves, which have been a wish of the community for years. And an update for the mountains. The mountains are the biome that received the most votes for an overhaul during the Minecon 2019.
The goal of the update is to create more variety in the caves, where players spend so much time mining ores and gems or exploring mines.
New blocks: So far, 3 new blocks have been introduced:
- The Sculk Sensor
- Stalactites and Stalagmites
- Copper Ore
The Sculk Sensor reacts to movement and then emits a redstone signal. With this block, you can build new inventions like “wireless” redstone. In the image, you can see the Wireless Trapdoors:
Stalactites and stalagmites are pointed blocks. If you fall on them, you will take more fall damage. You can see what a cave with such special blocks looks like in the following graphic:
You can discover Copper Ore while exploring underground after the update. With copper, you can create lightning rods. But that’s not all. For exciting new houses, you can also use copper in the roof.
If you’re lucky, you might even find the rare crystal geodes. In the screenshot, you can see a cave with the special stones:
With the crystals, you can craft a telescope. This way, you can identify dangers or treasures hiding nearby from a distance of several blocks.
New mobs: The update will introduce two new types of mobs in Minecraft:
- Warden
- and Axolotl
The Warden are hostile mobs that live in the dark caves. They have the ability to react to movement instead of what they see. They cannot see at all – Wardens are blind. A variation from the Creepers, who can even become your friends underground.
You can distract Wardens with sounds. If you throw a snowball in another direction, you can lure the Warden away from you.
The Axolotl are water beings that can be found in caves. The special thing about them is that they can help you in battles. They attack and even heal. Everything we know about the new Axolotl in Minecraft.
Improved caves: An improved generation of caves should provide more variety while exploring. There will be narrow tunnels, huge caves, lakes in caves, and even underground waterfalls.
New caves include:
- Lush Caves
- Dripstone Caves
Additionally, there will be a new archaeology system. You can excavate rare, fragile artifacts with a brush item. You also have the chance to discover buried ruins.
Mountains: The mountains in Minecraft are set to be generated differently through the update. You’ll find traps and goats even in the snow. Among the traps is powdered snow. If you step on it, you’ll fall through the snow layer.
More features: Along with all these changes comes the ability to bundle items. This way, you can store a larger amount of certain items in the same slot.
Which update is omitted?
The team says: Because the “Caves & Cliffs” update is so large, the team needs a lot of time for it. Therefore, the traditional Holiday update will be omitted this time.
Originally, an update for the mountains was set to be released for Christmas 2020. However, the team decided to combine the two updates. Both updates share a technical background.
“By combining the two updates, we gave ourselves much more time and opportunities to make this update really what we want, rather than being constrained by time,” revealed Cory Scheviak from Mojang to MeinMMO.
The most anticipated update of all time
Minecraft says: We at MeinMMO had the chance to ask the gameplay team developer of Minecraft, Cory Scheviak, a few questions about the “Caves & Cliffs” update.
MeinMMO: Players have been wishing for a cave update for years. Why is now the right time for it?
Cory Scheviak:
“There are a few reasons why we believe now is the right time for the underground update that players have long yearned for.
First, we wanted to ensure that we can actually deliver the epic update that the community has dreamed of for so long. With the bolstering of resources in the team, we feel ready to tackle such a large undertaking now.
Second, we wanted to ensure that we bring this update at a time when we can really hear and act on community feedback.
Third, we took the time to understand what exactly the community really expects from a cave update. We didn’t want to rush it just because it was in high demand. We took the time to prepare ourselves and the code base for this update. Finally, we wanted to ensure that we could release the update simultaneously on all platforms with full feature parity. Because we want all players to enjoy the same update at the same time, regardless of how and where they choose to play.”
MeinMMO: Is this huge update part of something big? Will there be more huge updates that will completely revolutionize Minecraft, or will there be smaller updates afterwards?
Cory Scheviak:
“With each major update, we strive to either overhaul or create an important part of the core game. It’s hard to answer what “will revolutionize Minecraft”, but our plan is to continue updating the game extensively in both major and minor ways for the foreseeable future.
That said, the cave update is undoubtedly the most requested and anticipated update of all time.”
Why is the cave update so important?
Often requested update: A revamp of the caves in Minecraft has long been requested by players. On the official Minecraft feedback page (via minecraft.net), a request from 2018 shines through. There, over 1000 comments have been lively discussed on the topic of “Caves Update”. The post has gathered more than 58,000 votes, showing how important the topic is to the Minecraft community.
With the new ruins and copper ore there are likely already two important points that will make the underground even more interesting. It will be exciting to find out what you can use the new copper for. It is clear that you can build stairs, steps, and cool lightning rods out of copper in Minecraft.
Buried ruins are likely the perfect content for those of you who have always been looking for mines and hidden rooms underground.
Thanks to these changes, the underground of Minecraft will finally have more to offer than just searching for ores, redstone and diamonds. Moreover, you will find more exciting places like mines.
These are exciting news for Minecraft fans. It’s also exciting that there could soon be really large servers. Minecraft with over 1,000 players is likely to be possible soon.
