Minecraft Bedrock 1.21.70.20 beta and preview patch notes: New cow variants, leaf litters, firefly, and more

Although a day later than Java's snapshot, a new Minecraft Bedrock beta has finally arrived. The Minecraft Bedrock 1.21.70.20 beta and preview have added two new cow variants, decorative leaf litter, ambient firefly bush blocks, and more.

Minecraft Java snapshots have had access to leaf litter and wildflowers for the past couple of weeks, but both features were missing in Bedrock betas and previews. Mojang has finally added both decorative blocks to Bedrock Edition in the 1.21.70.20 beta and preview.

Other than leaf litter and wildflowers, Minecraft Bedrock Edition 1.21.70.20 introduces two cow variants, bush and firefly bush blocks, ambient sounds for deserts and badlands, and many other changes. Here are the patch notes for the latest Minecraft Bedrock 1.21.70.20 beta and preview.

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Minecraft Bedrock 1.21.70.20 patch notes: All you need to know

Experimental features

Blocks

• Added Leaf Litter block
• Short Grass now generates slightly sparser in Meadows
• Added Wildflowers block

Bush

• The Bush is a new type of decorative block that can be found in small patches in the following biomes:
• Plains
• Windswept Hills
• Windswept Gravelly Hills
• Windswept Forest
• River
• Forest
• Birch Forest
• Old Growth Birch Forest
• The Bush can be used in the Composter
• Using Bone Meal on a Bush places a neighbouring Bush next to the Bush if possible

Firefly Bush

Added the Firefly Bush block

• Spawns Firefly particles that fly around it when the player is near
• Illuminates the area around it
• Using Bone Meal on a Firefly Bush drops a Firefly Bush block
• Firefly Bushes are found naturally in clumps next to water in the Overworld
• In Swamp biomes they can be found anywhere and are twice as likely to be found next to water

Cow variants

• Added two new Cow variants - Warm Cow and Cold Cow!
• These have their own own unique texture and geometry, but not a separate spawn egg
• They spawn in the same biomes as the Warm, Cold, and Temperate Pigs

Leaf Litter

• Leaf Litter is a new type of decorative block which can be found in the Forests, Dark Forests and Wooded Badlands
• Leaf Litter can have different amounts of leaves in one block space
• Up to four Leaf Litter pieces can be placed in the same block space
• Placing a Leaf Litter into an already placed Leaf Litter block increases the amount of leaves
• Leaf Litter can be placed in four orientations
• Leaf Litter can be created by smelting any type of Leaves block
• Leaf Litter can be used as fuel for smelting
• Leaf Litter has unique block sounds

Wildflowers

• Wildflowers are a new type of flower which grow in Birch Forests, Old Growth Birch Forests and Meadows
• Using Bone Meal on Grass Blocks in these biomes can grow Wildflowers
• Wildflowers can have different amounts of flowers in one block space
• Up to four Wildflowers can be placed in the same block space
• Placing Wildflowers into an already placed Wildflowers block increases the amount of flowers
• Using Bone Meal on Wildflowers will produce more Wildflowers
• Wildflowers can be placed in four orientations
• Wildflowers can be crafted into Yellow Dye

New Ambient Sounds for Desert and Badlands

• Sand, Red Sand and Terracotta of any color have a chance of playing ambient sounds when surrounded by any one of them on at least 3 sides 8 blocks away
• block.sand.ambient can be played in any biome
• block.sand.ambient.attached only plays when in Desert or Badlands biomes
• Dead Bush blocks have a chance of playing ambient sounds when placed on top of two blocks that are any color of Terracotta, Sand or Red Sand blocks in any biome

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Features and bug fixes

Blocks

• Placing a block in liquid, and then placing another block next to your first block in liquid will no longer replace your second placed block for a moment causing you to fall into the liquid
• Structure Blocks no longer briefly change textures when placed (MCPE-185531)
• Sea Pickles can now be placed on any block with center support (MCPE-116152)
• Barrier blocks will no longer prevent chunks rendering behind them (MCPE-153515)

Gameplay

• Fixed a mismatch between server and client when continuously building that caused orientation sensitive blocks to sometimes change to the wrong block

General

• Fixed a crash that would occur on Xbox if you pressed "Cancel" in the Xbox UI when converting a world or importing a world from Retail to Preview
• In Server Authoritative movement, when Players receive a movement correction it will use the current Player speed instead of a generic one, this should give a better experience.
• In Server Authoritative movement, when Players receive a downward movement correction it will now use gravity acceleration, this should give a better experience.

Mobs

• Foxes now take damage from lava, and not only fire (MCPE-56926)

Realms

• Fix Random Tick Speed and Respawn Radius settings resetting to default values (REALMS-11759)
• Fix "Reset Random Tick Speed" button not working when editing an existing world on Realms

User interface

• Bundle tooltip no longer flickers for players beyond the first when playing in split screen
• Adjusted Minecoin purchase screen UI to not show stray pixels. Fixed overlapping issue on PS4.
• Replacing items with the lock_in_inventory component with items from the creative inventory using touch input now fails gracefully and produces a warning message.
• Align rideable entity inventory transparent background with other screens
• (MCPE-189224)
• Fixed problem with moving items from creative inventory to player inventory on pocket ui. (MCPE-185361)

Vanilla Parity

• Beacon rendering is no longer limited by the player's vertical distance from it (MCPE-25228)

Biomes

• Fixed an issue where Dark Forests were missing trees along their northern borders with other biomes
• Updated the tree composition in Dark Forests to match Java Edition, increasing the number of Dark Oak Trees and reducing the prevalence of other tree types

Mobs

• Donkeys now spawn in Savannas
• Donkeys now spawn in Plains in groups of 1-3 instead of 2-6

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Besides these, many technical changes have been added in the Minecraft Bedrock 1.21.70.20 beta and preview. Interested players can check out the official patch notes on the Minecraft website to learn more.

The Minecraft Bedrock 1.21.70.20 beta/preview is available for Android, Windows, Xbox, and PlayStation. However, it is delayed for iOS devices.