The latest Minecraft: Bedrock Edition beta adds lava aquifers and more

The latest beta adds spicy lakes and shakes things up a little.

What you need to know

• Minecraft: Bedrock Edition has a long-running beta program to test upcoming features and updates.
• The latest beta is now available with lots of tweaks, bug fixes, and new experimental lava aquifers.
• Minecraft: Bedrock Edition Beta 1.17.0.56 from the 'Caves and Cliffs Update' also tweaks the "Experimental Features" toggle.
• You can now install the latest beta on Xbox, Windows 10, and Android devices if you're enrolled in the beta program.

Minecraft is giving hardcore players a lot to play with today with the release of Minecraft: Bedrock Edition Beta 1.17.0.56 to testers. The latest beta continues to test developments from the upcoming Caves and Cliffs Update, which is now releasing in two parts later this year. Beta 1.17.0.56 includes a sizeable number of changes, fixes, and tweaks, including changes to how the "Experimental Features" toggle works and the addition of lava aquifers to the aforementioned experiment.

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The full changelog for Minecraft: Bedrock Edition Beta 1.17.0.56 includes:

Experimental features

User interface

• Added a warning for loading an old world with Experimental features in a new version of the game
• Added a label that indicates that a world is Experimental
• Added a description for Experimental features in the world creation screen

Aquifers

• Aquifers filled with lava are now placed underground during world generation

Features & bug fixes

Axolotl

• Axolotl no longer attacks invisible mobs
• Axolotl textures have been updated
• Bred Axolotl maintain their color after being placed from a Bucket

Spyglass

• There is now a tooltip on controller for holding a Spyglass

Amethyst

• Amethyst Buds and cluster breaking animation no longer float in the air
• Aligned in-hand rendering of Amethyst Bud items with Java Edition
• Amethyst Geodes were made slightly rarer

Azalea

• Bonemealing Azalea / Flowering Azalea now correctly turns into a tree if placed on Moss Block

Deepslate

• Deepslate top and bottom textures are now applied in isotropic manner. Due to tessellation limitations, we are limiting the isotropicness of Deepslate to when these textures are up and down (as this is a rotatable block) for now

Small dripleaf

• Players are now able to use Pick Block Small Dripleaf
• When bonemealing Small Dripleaf, the resulting Big Dripleaf is at least 2 blocks tall

Dripstone

• Mobs can once again pathfind around Pointed Dripstone

Glow squid

• Naturally spawned Glow Squid now despawn
• Using Pick Block on a Glow Squid in Creative now gives the Glow Squid Egg

Lightning rod

• Lightning that strikes Lightning Rod no longer has the chance to trigger Skeleton traps

Powder snow

• Textures are now applied in isotropic manner
• Multiple blocks can no longer be placed on Powder Snow
• Fences and Walls no longer connect to Powder Snow in Bedrock
• Fog effect is no longer applied to the third-person camera when the camera isn't inside Powder Snow
• Powder Snow Block no longer becomes invisible if the Player is extinguished by both the Powder Snow Block and any other method at the same time
• Powder Snow no longer has one corner that collides with mobs

Mobs

• Skeletons transforming in to Strays now play appropriate transformation sounds
• Withers no longer take freeze damage from Powder Snow
• Bees no longer gather nectar from Sweet Berry Bushes
• Bees can once again enter Beehives and Bee Nests

Controller tooltips

• Added tooltips for:
  • Collect Lava from Cauldron using Bucket
  • Collect Powder Snow from Powder Snow Block using Bucket
  • Empty Lava into Cauldron from Bucket
  • Empty Powder Snow into Cauldron from Bucket

Gameplay

• Player who receives negative damage will not generate absorption heart
• When a Player using the touch interface presses and holds the crafting output window, they can rapidly craft items up to one stack

Iron & gold ore

• Iron and Gold Ore now drops the correct block item instead of nothing when mined on worlds that have a Base Game Version locked to a value lower than 1.17

Items

• Picking up part of a stack no longer picks up the entire stack and drops the excess

Player animations

• Fixed Players showing the Bow holding animation after respawning when killed by another Player
• Fixed issue where certain items (Bow, Cossbow, Trident, shield in main hand) wouldn't bob with View Bobbing turned on

Translation

• Removed Lit Deepslate Redstone translation

Technical updates

• Fixed issue with Simburbia world where standing next to a windows shutter block would obscure the view with the "update" texture
• Fixed a crash that occurred when using the /stopsound command to stop the elytra.loop sound

Graphical

• Fixed a crash on Windows 10 that can occur in ray tracing mode due to a stale pointer reference
• Fixed various cases when ray tracing textures would not be reloaded (resolution switching, upscaling mode switching, ray tracing on / off toggling)
• Fixed Enchanted Bow's textures being too dark

Summon Prefix fixes

• Fixed a merge bug when loading json definitions for Vanilla mobs
• Fixed a bug with the summonable property of overridden vanilla mobs pre JSON version 1.8.0, which caused Bees to not be summonable

Items

• The has_equipment filter will now properly evaluate custom entity spawn eggs

Projectiles

The ImpactDamageSubcomponent will again only prevent damage from being dealt to fire immune mobs if the catchFire field is true and the projectile is on fire

Dedicated server

• The dedicated server log will now list all Experiments enabled in a world when loading it

A gaming masterpiece

Minecraft

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Available everywhere you play.

Minecraft is an inarguable and complete success. It has sold copies in the hundreds of millions, has a huge following of dedicated players, and lets you unlock your every creative desire. It's also available on every platform imaginable, including Xbox, Windows 10, PlayStation, Nintendo Switch, Android, and iOS. Play with anyone and play anywhere.