Minecraft Caves & Cliffs Update Part 2: Developers share more details about the second update

Minecraft Caves and Cliffs is turning out to be the best update the game has ever received. This update will revamp the caves and mountain generation by introducing new caves, mountain biomes, and more.

Due to massive changes and technical difficulties coming along with it, Mojang split the update into two parts. The first part will introduce new mobs, items and blocks, whereas the other part will feature technical difficulties related to world generation, such as world height change, noise caves, and more.

News of the split update disappointed many fans. They had a lot of questions regarding both parts of Caves and Cliffs update.

Agnes Larsson, a leading developer (Image via YouTube/Minecraft)

Today, Mojang released a video featuring Agnes Larsson, the Vanilla Minecraft Game Director, and Alexander Sandor, a Gameplay Developer. Together they answered many questions regarding both parts of Caves and Cliffs update.

Developers share information about Minecraft Caves and Cliffs Part 2

Reason for giving both parts different major versions

Since Caves and Cliffs was supposed to be a single update, many fans expected features of the second half would continue in the 1.17 version. However, LadyAgnes mentioned the first part is 1.17 and the second 1.18:

The reason we gave them major version numbers is because both part 1 and part 2 includes lots of really big features and lots of features, and then we think they should have a major version number.

3D biomes are coming in 1.18 update

The 1.18 update will add new cave biomes, making fans wonder whether Minecraft will receive 3D biomes. Developers have officially confirmed there are going to be 3D biomes in Minecraft Caves and Cliffs Part 2.

Yes, we will have 3D biomes in part two. One example of that is the lush cave biomes, where we have the possibility of having a different biome on the surface from underground.

Upgrading worlds from 1.17 to 1.18

The biggest challenge for developers is blending the 1.17 world into 1.18 since part 2 of Caves and Cliffs will reduce the world depth to Y -64 (currently 0). Due to this, loading worlds from the previous version to 1.18 can cause serious issues.

For us, it's very important that you can play on your worlds for many, many years, so we really want to be respectful to old worlds, and that's true in this case as well. s

So we're actually working on blending so when you update your world to part two we will blend the old world generation with the new world generation.

Developers are looking forward to the Minecraft community's feedback on Caves and Cliffs Part 1. Mojang already has plans ready for an update after 1.18. As of now, Agnes has mentioned more information will be announced at Minecon 2021.