The latest Minecraft snapshot is live, which means a load of new features to check out ahead of the launch of Caves and Cliffs. Strictly speaking, the big additions here are the Minecraft goats, but we already know the basics of what to expect there. What’s more notable is that Mojang is bringing one of Bedrock’s most useful quality-of-life additions over to Java: the light block.
Technically, the light block isn’t really a block at all – it’s functionally the same as air. However, once you place it, you can interact with it to set an ambient light level. Basically, it lets you easily set up custom lighting to finesse the aesthetics of your Minecraft builds. You can only get light blocks via the /give command so, er, don’t expect to go mining for light. (If you need more details on Minecraft console commands, you can follow that link.)
You can check out the patch notes on the official site for everything that’s added in 21w13a, but as ever, you’ll need to bear in mind that all the specifics are subject to change ahead of the actual Minecraft 1.17 release date this summer.
Check out the video below for a deeper look at what’s been changed.
For help getting into Minecraft beta versions, you can follow that link.