Minecraft: Bedrock Edition beta tests some 'Caves and Cliffs Update' features early, adds goats and powder snow

What you need to know

• Minecraft is an open world survival title that enjoys globabl popularity and recognition, developed my Mojang Studios.
• It has an ongoing beta program to test new updates, fixes, and new features before they're released to the public.
• The latest beta resembles recent ones with a host of bug fixes, but also hides an experimental toggle to enable new features.
• Players can test out a couple new features that will be included in the upcoming Caves and Cliffs Update right now.

If you're a fan of Minecraft, and are enrolled in the Minecraft: Bedrock Edition beta, you'll want to pay extra attention to the new beta update that's rolling out to insiders right now. Beta 1.16.200.52 is a mundane update on the surface, filled predominantly with new bug fixes for already-released Nether Update, but this beta differs from other recent releases by hiding experimental features behind a toggle buried in settings.

With the latest Minecraft beta, players can test out a handful of features that will be included in the upcoming Caves and Cliffs Update, which was announced at Minecraft Live to much fanfare. There has been an Experimental Features toggle in Minecraft for some time, but with the latest beta it is being expanded to be more powerful and granular, and by using this toggle players can enable some early Caves and Cliffs Update features, before the Nether Update has even had its last farewell.

By enabling the toggle, your worlds will likely become incompatible with any future releases or betas (so make copies before you do this!), but it does allow you to check out two features from the Caves and Cliffs Update: mountain goats and powder snow! Let's take a look at the full changelog:

Caves and Cliffs Update features

Goats

• The goat will spawn in extreme hills biomes for now, until we prepare a permanent place for them to live and practice their head-butting skills
• Goats are the mountain kings. They can climb mountains and rough terrain, and take reduced fall damage
• They love to jump—usually when you're least expecting it!
• Beware! They are mischievous and might knock intruders off the mountainside!
• Goats may drop a horn item if they ram into a tree

Powder snow

• Added powder snow block
  • Enable the Caves and Cliffs experimental toggle to test powder snow out in this week's beta!
  • This block is currently only available through the creative inventory
• Leather boots make it easier for players to traverse powder snow
• Entities can enter powder snow blocks, but their movement is slowed down while inside, and fall damage is ignored
• Goats are smart enough to avoid powder snow blocks when pathing
• Powder Snow blocks have a slightly different texture than regular snow blocks
• When the camera is inside a powder snow block fog is rendered around it and an overlay texture is rendered on it

Nether Update beta

Performance & stability

• Fixed several crashes that could occur during gameplay
• Large numbers of scheduled instant updates should no longer crash the game
• Fixed occasional crash when going through a portal or flying around
• Fixed a crash that would occasionally occur while flying or moving around the game world

General

• Only preview items will be shown in crafting screen when auto crafting an item on controller. This prevents rapid updates of the recipe book
• Fixed a bug where End Portal blocks were not removed after an End Portal Frame block is destroyed. Filled blocks other than end portal blocks will remain in place
• Fixed paperdoll such that it can now always be rotated with the mouse when in the dressing room

Accessibility

• Emote wheel now supports the screen reader
• Fixed a bug where UI screen reader did not read the screen title and shortcut buttons on the Invite to game Screen
• Fixed an issue where the screen reader was not reading updates often enough on some devices
• Fixed the screen reader so messages with controller icons in the Chat Screen are read correctly
• UI Screen Reader now reads the Open Chat Message while Text To Speech For Chat is turned off

Gameplay

• Double chests no longer lose contents when reloading the world
• Compass is no longer consumed when used on a Lodestone in creative mode
• Cocoa Pods generated in jungle now generate in the proper direction
• Signs no longer replace decorations when attempting to place in the same space as the decoration
• Right-clicking a snow block with a shovel no longer breaks the snow block
• Dirt paths (formerly grass path) can now be made by using a shovel on dirt, podzol, mycelium or course dirt (as well as grass)
• Updated the Netherite leggings texture
• Twisting Vines can no longer be placed on Composter blocks while sneaking

Mobs

• Villagers will no longer steal workstations from each other
• Mobs no longer randomly stop attacking and following their targets
• Piglins that are close together can no longer pick up the same item if it's dropped between them
• Mobs no longer spawn in Wither Roses
• Bees now only exit at the front of Bee Hives and Bee Nests

Commands

• /playsoundcommands now play the sound correctly for all players in range
• /effect command duration is now capped at 1,000,000 seconds
• Add ticking area commands performed in the same tick now disallow adding areas with the same name twice
• Placeholder text message for the /titleraw command success no longer returns to player
• FadeOutargument is no longer ignored in /title's times command

Graphics, textures, & user interfaces

• Update Zombified Piglin texture to remove flickering of loincloth
• "Classic Controls - Intense" font color now matches the surrounding text in VR Controls menu
• X button in Chat Settings is no longer present when using a controller
• Profile screen has been improved, now characters will be visible and can be selected or modified as soon as they load
• Fixed a bug where the visual focus indicator was lost when hovering on tabs
• Glowsticks no longer use placeholder textures (Education Feature)
• Loading screen tips won't display the key "tips.game.62"
• Avoid purchasing Realm if player cancels out of "Purchase History Needed" dialog

Scripting, add-ons, & technical changes

• Change set_block and set_block_at_pos to use BlockDescriptor when specifying block_type
• Items with the item lock component no longer cause the recipe book to show invalid recipe results

Blocks

• Added query.cardinal_facing_2d to get a ground plane direction that doesn't return up or down
• Added the ability to put block models into the models/blocks folder
• Added the ability for item triggers to send events to the block they are interacting with (when there is one such as on_use_on)
• Added the ability to query the interacted face for both interactions with blocks and using minecraft:on_use_on in an item. Face can be queried with query.block_face
• Fixed face occlusion with data driven blocks to properly account for unit cube transparent vs unit cube opaque
• Fixed a crash caused by heap corruption with entity_collision and pick_collision components
• Data-driven blocks no longer have their top faces rotated 180 degrees when carried or in inventory
• Mobs are no longer teleported back and forth outside solid objects if there is not enough space for multiple entities

Event responses

• add_mob_effect and remove_mob_effect no longer throw content errors when valid effect names are passed in
• Added documentation for remove_mob_effect to make creators aware they can use the value "all" in effect to remove all mob effects from a target
• Fixed items not being placeable in additional horse equipment slots. Does not fix all equippable behaviors
• Inventory size on the minecraft:inventory component has to be increased to match the equippable slots in order for the server to accept the item placement
• The tooltip for item with item lock component will no longer show when game rule showtags is disabled

Minecraft

Main

• Minecraft Nether Update: Everything New
• Minecraft Xbox Series X: What To Expect
• Minecraft Education Edition: Ultimate Guide
• How to survive your first night in Minecraft
• How to keep your child safe online in Minecraft