5 best changes in Minecraft's Bedrock 1.20.60.21 preview

Minecraft: Bedrock Edition's Preview Program received a new entry on November 29, 2023, in the form of the 1.20.60.21 preview. Though this experimental update doesn't add a ton of new features, it makes some important bug fixes and a few tweaks to blocks, items, and the user interface. The changes aren't huge, but they should be welcomed as solid quality-of-life improvements overall.

Although plenty of the changes made in the 1.20.60.21 preview don't exactly warrant much celebration, some fixes and tweaks should be warmly received by Minecraft fans.

Obviously, every player is different and has their own tastes, but it doesn't hurt to take a moment and examine the most impactful changes that arrived in this new experimental release.

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The five best changes that arrived in Minecraft Bedrock 1.20.60.21 preview

1) Nether gold/lapis lazuli ore parity

Minecraft Bedrock players can now get more gold nuggets and lapis lazuli from ore blocks (Image via Mojang)

For quite some time, Minecraft: Bedrock Edition fans had to settle for receiving fewer gold nuggets and lapis lazuli from mining nether gold/lapis lazuli ore. Fortunately, the 1.20.60.21 preview changed this significantly. Players can now receive up to six gold nuggets and up to nine lapis lazuli when mining their ore blocks without an enchanted tool.

When using a tool enchanted with Fortune III, players can reap the rewards of up to 24 gold nuggets and 36 lapis lazuli from breaking the resources' ore blocks, respectively. This puts the material gains from these two ore blocks on par with how they've operated in Java Edition.

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2) 1.21 update copper grate fixes

Fairly major bugs following the addition of copper grates have been addressed (Image via Mojang)

Various copper blocks have made their way to recent Minecraft Previews thanks to content from the 1.21 update being added as Experimental Features. However, some blocks, like copper grates, didn't exactly work as Mojang intended, so measures were taken in the 1.20.60.21 preview to amend these problems.

Among the fixes in the latest beta include the ability for copper grates to be waterlogged as intended, and they can now be waxed with honeycomb to prevent oxidation. These aspects of the game were meant to be available from the beginning for copper grates, but at least Mojang was quick to amend the issue.

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3) New loading screen tips

Minecraft: Bedrock Edition's loading screen tips can now be categorized based on player progress (Image via Mojang)

Although Minecraft veterans may not tend to keep an eye on loading screen tips too often, they can still be helpful for newer players. Now, the 1.20.60.21 preview has introduced three categories of tips that can appear on a contextual basis. To be more specific, depending on a player's progression in the world they're loading into, certain loading screen tips will appear accordingly.

If anything, this should help newer players by not displaying advice that they've already progressed well beyond.

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4) Volumetric fog/shaft lights

New graphical features have been added to Minecraft's Deferred Technical Preview (Image via Mojang)

Although these features haven't been introduced outside the Deferred Technical Preview in this beta's graphical settings, the inclusion of volumetric fog and light shafts should be a welcome addition.

Minecraft fans in Bedrock Edition certainly won't complain about vanilla graphical improvements, even if they have to tweak their in-game video settings to do so.

Sure, mods have been capable of adding lighting effects like these for quite some time, but it's always nice to have access to them in a preview without needing to use mods or add-ons.

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5) Debut of the Friends Drawer feature

A new friend's list feature is in its early stages for Bedrock Edition (Image via Mojang)

It may have flown under the radar a bit in the 1.20.60.21 preview's patch notes, but Mojang is testing out a new Bedrock feature known as the Friends Drawer. The function displays friends on a list categorized by whether they're online or offline. The "add friends" button has been renamed "search for players" and improves overall functionality with text-to-speech settings.

It's a small tweak as Mojang continues to bring its new UI for Bedrock Edition into focus. However, it should be pretty useful for bringing along a friend or two into a LAN world or a multiplayer server.