It's hard to overstate how popular Mojang Studios' Minecraft has become since 2009. This May, Minecraft passed 200 million copies sold, and when Steve was announced to be the next DLC fighter in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate this week it crashed the social media site Twitter. One key element to the game's success is the way it has constantly evolved, and Minecraft's next major batch of content will be its Caves & Cliffs update in summer 2021.
The Caves & Cliffs update was announced today during Minecraft Live 2020, a digital-only event that presented information about upcoming releases across the Microsoft-owned brand, picking up the slack for this year's MineCon which was cancelled due to the coronavirus pandemic. According to a press release from Mojang, Caves & Cliffs will be available on all platforms next year because the scope of its additions are "massive," so developers had to push back their "traditional" holiday update.
These additions are on multiple fronts, as the title of the update would suggest. "Caves" is completely revamping the way underground cave systems generate in Minecraft so there will be more variation, including narrow tunnels, cave lakes, and waterfalls. There will also be entirely new underground environments, such as foliage-coated lush caves or crystal geodes, as well as stalactites that drip water and stalagmites that damage anything falling on them.
Meanwhile, the additions made for "Cliffs" are based on a community biome vote during MineCon 2019, where the release date for Minecraft Earth was announced. Mountains will have more "spectacular" generation, and players can fall into powder snow traps. Both caves and mountains will also have new mobs to encounter: Hostile Wardens with powerful attacks that react based on movement and helpful water-based Axolotl will be found underground, and "mischievous" goats will be wandering the mountains.
These are not the only additions announced for the summer 2021 update. Copper ore will be a component for lightning rods, crystal geodes can create telescopes to see further away, Sculk Sensors are natural contraptions based in another new underground biome that will react to movement by emitting a redstone signal, and players will be able to bundle items to free up space. Mojang is also adding an archaeology system through which players can uncover rare artifacts in dig sites and create clay pots.
Another part of this year's Minecraft Live was the mob vote that let players decide Glow Squids will be added to the game — following up on the addition of the Phantom in 2018. Fans of the franchise were also introduced to the new Howling Peaks DLC for its action RPG spin-off Minecraft Dungeons, which will become cross-platform compatible later this year.
Minecraft is available now on Mobile, PC, PS4, Switch, and Xbox One.
Source: Minecraft Live