The latest Minecraft: Bedrock Edition beta features the new cave generation

Testing new caves through the "Experimental Features" toggle.

What you need to know

• Minecraft: Bedrock Edition Beta 1.16.230.56 is now releasing for Minecraft testers on Xbox, Windows 10, and Android.
• The latest beta tests the new cave generation from the 'Caves and Cliffs Update' through the "Experimental Features" toggle.
• This cave generation will probably appear in the second half of the 'Caves and Cliffs Update' coming in Winter 2021.
• The 'Caves and Cliffs Update' was recently split into two parts and delayed by Mojang Studios.

Minecraft is releasing the new Minecraft: Bedrock Edition Beta 1.16.230.56 today, which has the unfortunate honor of being the first Minecraft: Bedrock Edition beta to release after Mojang Studios announced that the massive Caves and Cliffs Update is being split into two parts and partially delayed. This isn't stopping the latest Minecraft beta from testing the new cave generation features that will likely be included in the second half of the Caves and Cliffs Update.

Today, players can look forward to new noise caves that add significantly more variety to Minecraft's caves, local water levels for cave systems, more adaptable mineshafts, and more through the "Experimental Features" toggle in Minecraft: Bedrock Edition's settings. These new features will likely make a public appearance in the second half of the Caves and Cliffs Update, which is now slated to release in Winter 2021.

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The full changelog for Minecraft: Bedrock Edition Beta 1.16.230.56 includes:

Caves & Cliffs

• Improved visibility when swimming in underwater caves
• Changed ore generation to match the new world height, and to add more strategy to mining
• Introducing noise-based caved generation that enables caves of more varied sizes and shapes
• Bringing local water levels to caves, allowing each cave to have its own water level
• Adapting mineshafts to fit into large caves. Mineshaft corridor is now attached to the ceiling via chains or to the floor via wood columns when missing support platform

Bug fixes

• Fixed a crash that could occur during gameplay
• Fixed a crash that occurred when curing a Zombie Villager in another dimension if the player had not traveled back to the Overworld since entering the World
• Fixed a crash that occurred when generating jungle biomes when the Caves and Cliffs experimental toggle was enabled
• Fixed a crash that could occur when switching between owned and non-owned Character Creator items
• Fixed an issue with Character Creator items not applying properly to characters

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