Minecraft 1.18 Update: Most important features revealed in experimental snapshots so far

In order to improve the upcoming Minecraft 1.18 Caves & Cliffs part two update, Mojang has decided to let players test new features in a handful of experimental snapshots. These snapshots are released for the Minecraft community to find bugs and provide feedback to the developers.

The second part of the Minecraft Caves & Cliffs update is significantly more epic than the first, and players can get a sneak peek by playing on the experimental snapshots.

At the moment, Mojang has only released four experimental snapshots. However, there will certainly be more to come.

The complete Minecraft Beginners Guide is available here, click here to view.

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Key features revealed in the Minecraft 1.18 experimental snapshots so far

The Snow Capped Peaks Biome (Image via wattles on YouTube)

Listed below are some of the biggest features that have been revealed in the experimental snapshots of the Minecraft 1.18 update (as per the official patch notes):

Players should note that the features listed below are subject to change.

• Made extreme hills terrain less unextreme. Fiddled with the placement of shattered terrain and extreme hills, in general, to make it fit in with the terrain better.
• Reduced the number of diorite/andesite/granite blobs on the surface. This should reduce the spray-paint look of stone shores and such.
• More iron! You'll still mostly have to go caving or mountain climbing to find it. But you'll find more iron when you do.
• Bigger copper blobs in dripstone caves. Go to that biome if you want more copper. Either that or find a large copper vein.
• Red sand is back! Tweaked badlands, so they sometimes show up in flat areas next to plateaus. Made the red sand generate higher up (to account for the generally higher terrain).
• Made peak biomes and meadows less likely to generate in flat low elevation areas.
• Snowy slopes and snowcapped peaks no longer place dirt under the snow. Mountains look less dirty now.
• Added a new Minecraft mountain biome: Stony peaks. This is just a variant of lofty/snowcapped peaks that uses stone and gravel instead of snow and ice.
• Added structures to some of the new mountain biomes. Pillager outposts generate in all the new mountain biomes. Villages generate in meadows.
• Fixed goat spawning (they weren't spawning in the new mountain biomes).
• Grass no longer generates under water.
• Fixed an issue where players in multiplayer can face far more or far fewer enemies than intended, particularly when other players are flying. Each player now gets their fair share of mobs.
• Raised cloud level from 128 to 192.
• Sheep spawn in meadows.
• Blue orchid no longer spawns in meadows.
• Added missing biomes: Ice Spikes and Eroded Badlands.
• Increased the height of some of the peaks. Now, they can reach up to 220-260 or so.
• Meadows sometimes spawn a lone tree, often with a bee nest.
• Emeralds and infested stone generate in the new mountain biomes.
• Made ore veins slightly larger and more frequent since very few people seemed to actually find them in survival.

View the Minecraftwiki here.

The Minecraft YouTube video above explains most of the new 1.18 biomes in great detail.