During the Minecraft Live digital event today, Mojang announced Caves and Cliffs to be the next major update coming to the sandbox title. As evident by the update"s name, it will greatly enhance these two major portions with changes to terrain generation, addition of new systems like archeology as well as new mobs.
As part of the caves overhaul, Mojang is bringing in lakes, tunnels, caverns, waterfalls, and more to these underground retreats. Caves will also come in different flavors like lush and dripstone, making them their own mini-biomes to explore. The new archeology system ties into this, where players will be able to discover ancient artifacts in ruins, giving them the opportunity to carefully dig out these treasures using the new brush tool.
Other cave-related additions announced today include at least two new ore types - copper and geodes - plus the movement-activated hostile mob Warden and the friendly water-dwelling Axolotl mob.
Meanwhile, on the Cliffs side of the update, Mojang is once again implementing improved map generation for more extravagant mountains with icy tops and dangerous crevices. Mountain goats are incoming as new mobs too, who will scale mountainsides and headbutt players if given the chance.
While more information regarding what else is in this massive update will be revealed later, other announced additions today include sculk sensor blocks, which essentially enable wireless Redstone circuits, telescopes, lightning rods, and item bundles that allow for more carrying capacity. A specific release date isn"t attached to the Minecraft Caves and Cliffs update, but Mojang is aiming to launch it during the summer of 2021.
The studio also revealed during the event that the Minecraft Dungeons ARPG spin-off is gaining another DLC campaign, Howling Peaks, in December alongside a season pass while cross-play will be enabled via a free update in November.