Minecraft: Bedrock Edition Beta 1.18.0.21 arrives with additional world generation changes

What you need to know

• Mojang Studios is currently releasing Minecraft: Bedrock Edition Beta 1.18.0.21 to testers on Xbox, Windows, and Android devices.
• While there aren't any exciting features here, this beta does include a number of fixes and changes, especially to world generation.
• This is the second official beta for 1.18 'Caves and Cliffs Update' Part Two, and is focused on polish and feature completion.
• Minecraft Live 2021 is airing on Oct. 16, 2021, which should give us an update on when to expect the final public release.

Minecraft: Java Edition just grabbed a new snapshot, so it's time for Minecraft: Bedrock Edition to follow a day later. Mojang Studios is now releasing Minecraft: Bedrock Edition Beta 1.18.0.21 to players enrolled in the beta program. There's not a ton to be excited about in the way of new features, here, but Mojang made sure to include plenty of bug fixes and improvements to make the experience more polished and smooth overall.

This is the second beta officially under 1.18 Caves and Cliffs Update, which should be launching later this year (and possibly sooner rather than later). There are lots of changes to world generation included in this beta, mostly focusing on ensuring biomes and how they're generated in the world make sense.

Minecraft Live 2021 is airing on Oct. 16, 2021, meaning we don't have to wait long to learn about what's next for Minecraft and we can possibly expect to see 1.18 Caves and Cliffs Update Part Two be released to the public.

Even without this massive update, though, Minecraft is still one of the best Xbox games, and boasts a huge collection of Minecraft toys and gifts to affirm its position as one of the greatest games ever made.

The full changelog for Minecraft: Bedrock Edition Beta 1.18.0.21 includes:

Features and bug fixes

World generation

• Updated ore distribution to make branch mining deep down more rewarding
• Non-cave biomes no longer change with height — so no more savannas in the sky and things like that
• Tweaked the relative size of some biomes to match 1.17 a bit closer
• Increased the average size of most biomes (this also means biomes aren't in the same places as before)
• Fixed some aquifer issues (a side effect of this is that aquifers are in different places now compared to the last beta)
• Slightly increased the frequency of underwater magma
• Increased the amount of dungeons, especially below height 0
• Gravel now generates below height 0
• Villages are now slightly more spread out
• Removed water lake features, as aquifers provide local water levels
• Zombies once again spawn in dripstone caves — Drowned can also spawn there, however
• Goats no longer spawn in stony peaks
• Fixed shifted sub-chunks on Caves & Cliffs flat worlds
• Hoodoos now generate in Eroded Badland biomes again
• Strange pillars no longer generate below Eroded Badland biomes
• Water and Lava springs now correctly generate at the expected frequency
• Tweaked Frozen biomes blending
• Canyons are now placed on the same height as on pre-1.18 world generation
• Fixed issue with Copper Ore hanging mid-air in ravines

Actors

• Lightning bolts do not have a shadow anymore

Blocks

• Snow Grass Block and all types of Snow blocks now use similar colors

Bone meal

• Nether Sprouts once again generate when using Bone Meal on Warped Nylium

Gameplay

• Re-entering a Caves & Cliffs world when in a danger zone at a valid negative Y position no longer teleports player to positive Y
• Copper Ore now drops 2 to 5 (from 2 to 3) Raw Copper items
• In the Stonecutter, a Block of Copper can be converted to four Cut Copper

Player

• Fixed player hitbox not resetting after gliding with Elytra
• Fixed player flight with Elytra being canceled when hitting a wall and taking damage

Items

• Ender Pearls no longer generate as Glow Sticks in Woodland Mansion chests

Mobs

• Fixed an issue preventing Tropical Fish from spawning in Lush Caves

Particles

• Water drips now trigger splash effects

User interface

• Renamed some occurrences of "level" in the user interface to the more accurate "world"
• When a value for a stepped slider does not correspond to a step it will display at the closest step
• Replaced the missing "Always Day" option in world settings

Vanilla parity

• Shield blocking animation now plays smoothly

Technical updates

General

• Fixed caching support for subchunk requests where it would sometimes not use the cache
• Fixed a versioning error with animation controllers that was causing the wrong schema to be utilized on marketplace worlds with an animation controller version 1.8.0

Android

• Revved Android version to Google API 30

Commands

• Added the /loot command with spawn loot overload

Experimental features

GameTest Framework

• Added deltaTime read-only property to TickEvent which represents the time between the last Level tick in seconds