Minecraft: Bedrock Edition Beta 1.17.40.20 finally tests brand-new Caves and Cliffs Update features

What you need to know

• Mojang Studios is currently working on 1.18 'Caves and Cliffs Update' Part Two for Minecraft, which will be a massive release.
• Today, the studio is finally bringing long-awaited features from the update to the Minecraft: Bedrock Edition beta for testers.
• Minecraft: Bedrock Edition Beta 1.17.40.20 includes the new Stony Peaks mountain biome, world generation tweaks, and more.
• As the year continues, we should steadily see more and more features from the future update be tested in betas and snapshots.

The Caves and Cliffs Update is the present and future of Minecraft, with 1.18 Part Two expected to bring massive world generation changes and new features to the long-running survival sandbox game. Today, Mojang Studios is finally bringing some of the major features they've been testing to the Minecraft: Bedrock Edition beta with the release of Minecraft: Bedrock Edition Beta 1.17.40.20, which includes new features like the Stony Peaks mountain biome and many other tweaks.

More recent Minecraft: Bedrock Edition betas, like the previous 1.17.30.25 release, have been considerably more minor, as Mojang continued to test more significant changes through Minecraft: Java Edition Experimental Snapshots. Now that the experiment is ending, these features can begin to roll out to more people to test and provide feedback on.

If you're interested in trying out a slice of Minecraft's future right now, you can. Mojang Studios is also hosting their Minecraft Live 2021 even in October, which will likely feature a ton of new announcements and reveals for Minecraft in the months and years to come, including inspiration for the next wave of best Minecraft toys and gifts.

The full changelog for Minecraft: Bedrock Edition Beta 1.17.40.20 includes:

Caves and Cliffs Update Experimental Features

General

• Added a new mountain biome: Stony Peaks!
  • This is just a variant of lofty / snow-capped peaks that uses stone and gravel instead of snow and ice, and is used to avoid temperature clashes such as a snow-capped peak sticking up from a jungle
• Corrected vegetation in Mountain Meadows
• Dripstone Clusters can now only be found in the Dripstone biome
• Dripstone features now only generate in Dripstone biome
• Mountain biomes now have correct feature places to match the Java Edition side-snapshot
• Infested Stone can be found under new mountains
• Tweaked ore distribution to match the Java Edition side-snapshot
• Clouds are now at Y level 192
• Tweaked biome placement, river size, and terrain shapes for a better overworld experience
• Tweaked mob spawning in mountain and cave biomes to match the Java Edition side-snapshot
• Trees in swamps can now generate slightly deeper when in water
• Deepslate now generates at lower depths
• Dripstone features now generate at Deepslate depths
• The placement logic of Small Dripstone feature has been refactored, frequency is similar but exact positions will differ
• Maps now correctly show the colors of blocks below a Y level of zero

Lush Caves

• Vines now generate in Lush Caves instead of generating above the surface
• Vines can now grow down below zero height

Villages

• Villages now generate in the style of the biome they are located in

Features and bug fixes

Blocks

• Falling stalactites are now offset properly to avoid interacting with entities outside their intended hitbox
• Beehives now generate in the world facing south

Candle cakes

• Pressing the 'use' button on a Candle Cake now consumes the correct amount of cake slices

Character Creator

• Fixed a crash that could occur when using Character Creator
• Tweaked color tint for default Steve skin to match default Steve
• Altered message for when friends change skins

Commands

• Education Edition items are no longer shown as an option when using @e[type=]

Gameplay

• Fixed a bug that caused players to be set on fire upon changing dimensions if there was Lava underneath the Nether Portal
• Players can no longer eat food at full hunger in Survival mode
• Sea Grass no longer spawns under Lily Pads during world generation to avoid breaking them
• Villagers can no longer spam doors open and closed
• Cartographers now more consistently give new maps on all platforms

World generation

• Amethyst geodes are now much less likely to generate in Strongholds, and if they do they will not destroy End Portals

Graphical

• Improved world visibility culling for underground situations to eliminate seeing sky at the end of tunnels / stairs

Mobs

• Improved mob pathing around partial blocks
• Armor no longer renders on Pillagers and Vindicators, but are still granted armor effects
• Fixed an issue with mob rendering that caused Vindicator Axes to be visible even when they're not attacking on older Resource Packs
• More mobs will spawn underground in the Overworld

Powder snow

• Powder Snow no longer disappears when looking at it from a distance

Structure block

• Trapdoors now rotate correctly when loaded from a Structure block

User interface

• Fixed an issue where the d-pad and directional keys could not be used to navigate in certain parts of the UI
• Fixed an issue where an error message could be shown after suspending the game on the achievements screens with screen animations disabled
• Fixed an issue where an obscure gamerule was added to settings
• Fix keyboard / d-pad navigation from custom server to edit server button
• New achievements screens are available on Windows 10 ARM-based PCs
• The sign in text on the start screen will no longer overlap the Marketplace button
• Add space between tab title and the word 'Tab' for text-to-speech on Settings screen
• Added "More Info" button to failed sign-in modal

Known issues

• Bee Nests generate too frequently in the world

Technical updates

Data driven items

• Updated documentation for Block Rotation Component
• Added required toggles to documentation and to content error for block components

Animation editor

• Nodes within the animation editor are now color coordinated depending on what type they are, which includes the animation component, skeletal animations, animation controllers, and controller states

Commands

• Command blocks with Needs Redstone and a non-zero Delay in Ticks will now execute only if they remain powered for the delay duration
• Fix alignment of the sidebar display from the /scoreboard command when text length changes

Data driven blocks

• Updated documentation for BlockExplosionResistance

Graphics

• Fixed failure to render leash when attached to a mob outside of viewport
• Added a content error for using a material but not providing the required number of textures to the render controller
• Testing RenderDragon engine across subset of Android devices (ARMv7)

Mobs

• Fixed ability to summon experience orbs via /summon command
• Fixed display only entity destruction in chunk discard scenarios

Molang

• Fixed query.item_remaining_use_duration having improperly scaled or inverted results
• Add new compile errors for expressions like text + 3`, which were previously ignored

User interface

• Added an ImGUI window for easier viewing of content errors

GameTest Framework

• Renamed method succeedWhenBlockTypePresent to succeedWhenBlockPresent
• Fixed a bug where property id would return "Unknown" for custom entities
• Identifier strings returned from property id now include the item's namespace

GameTest Sequence

• Removed method thenWaitWithDelay
• Added method thenWaitAfter(delayTicks: number, callback: () => undefined) — After a delay, executes the given callback every tick until it succeeds. Exceptions thrown within the callback will end sequence execution

Player

• Fixed a bug where the location property would return an incorrect height for players
• Added property id

Block

• Replaced method getLocation with property location
• Replaced method getPermutation with property permutation
• Replaced method getType with property type
• Replaced methods isWaterlogged and setWaterlogged with property isWaterlogged
• Replaced method getBlockData with property permutation
• Replaced method isEmpty with property isEmpty
• Removed property canBeWaterlogged

BlockType

• Replaced method getName with property id
• Replaced method canBeWaterlogged with property canBeWaterlogged

BlockPermutation

• Replaced method getType with property type