Minecraft’s new 1.18 snapshot beta is here, kicking off a new trend of spelunking among fans. The latest slice of the upcoming Caves & Cliffs update features fresh biomes, a total revamp of the building game’s world generation, and tweaks to monster spawns.
Minecraft’s 1.18 Experimental Snapshot 1 introduces terrain variations that are separate from how the biomes usually work. That means you’ll see hills, plains, and mountains carry naturally across differing biomes, with the devs pointing out that “forests and deserts could form up on a hill without needing a special biome just for that”, to name one example. The devs are swift to note on Reddit that this snapshot is experimental, and “everything is subject to change”, meaning some features may be changed or removed in the future to improve performance. “Also, keep in mind that this experimental snapshot is missing some important performance improvements that we are currently working on, so things may be slow,” one dev writes.
Even if the snapshot is potentially fleeting, though, players are still having a grand old time. The Minecraft subreddit is consistently a pleasant place to be, though it’s especially so right now with heaps of players sharing clips of their recent cave diving adventures.
Here’s a few videos and photos from Minecraft players:
My jaw dropped, i have no words to this weird generation in new 1.18 snapshot from Minecraft
after the 1.18 minecraft experimental release, im so hyped for the new update pic.twitter.com/makYFiQpYn
— Samoraei (@Samoraeii) July 15, 2021
Here´s my take on the 1.18 Mountains and Caves from Minecraft
The new mountain are so big this amount of water comes from one ice block from Minecraft
You can find the instructions on how to install 1.18 Experimental Snapshot 1 on the game’s official website, though they’re a tab more complicated than usual beta versions. The snapshot is available for both Java and Bedrock editions of Minecraft.