Minecraft forgotten biomes: The history of removed biomes

Minecraft is a game as famous for exploration as much as it is for modding or building. Many players hold cherished memories of the first time they attempted to explore a cave or failed to build a house in time for the first night, learning the hard way what that meant. Part of this exploration is finding new and interesting biomes, each with unique features and mobs to help them stand out.

This makes it always interesting when a biome is removed from the game. It feels like a piece of exploration is forever lost in time. Not many of these biomes are lost, even given Minecraft's expansive development history, with the few that have been removed detailed below, along with descriptions of what the biome was and if there's a modern equivalent.

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Minecraft's removed biomes

Tundra

Ice spikes are the best example of inhospitable frozen wastes in modern Minecraft (Image via Mojang Studios)

Removed: Beta 1.8

The long-removed Tundra biome was one of the more inhospitable frozen biomes when it existed. They were almost completely barren, outside of the layer of snow covering the grass. There were occasional trees, though, making it at least possible to eek out some sort of early Minecraft starter base.

Being removed in beta, the barren frozen waste DNA of the Tundra can be found in modern Minecraft biomes, like Ice Spikes, which is equally as inhospitable to outsiders.

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Rainforest

The rainforest most likely turned into the jungle (Image via Mojang Studios)

Removed: Beta 1.8

Minecraft's rainforests were considered wet biomes that were much more likely to generate as large biomes. This was noteworthy, as biomes tended to be smaller in general in older versions. They were filled with oak trees and, due to how they generated, were also some of the most cliff-filled in the game.

It's easy to see where the Rainforest eventually led: Minecraft's oppressively overgrown jungles. Since jungle wood is a whole different type than oak, and since jungle trees can generate a huge variant, it's probably for the best that rainforests were removed. The worlds found with Minecraft's best jungle seeds more than make up for losing these glorified oak forests.

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Seasonal forest

Seasonal forests were removed due to rainforests being removed (Image via Mojang Studios)

Removed: Beta 1.8

Seasonal forests were a forest variant often found near plains biomes, or separating regular forests from rainforests. They were visually identical to regular forests, save for the fact that they generate fewer trees than a regular forest, and the trees that do generate are exclusively oak.

There's less of a direct comparison in the modern game for seasonal forests. As biome blending has improved, the need for intermediate biomes such as this one has decreased. Rainforests being removed also didn't help, as they no longer had a purpose.

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Ice desert

Ice deserts resemble modern snowy beaches (Image via Mojang Studios)

Removed: Beta 1.8

Ice deserts are an interesting removed biome due to never being fully officially implemented. It was a simple expanse of sand covered in snowfall and ice, making it even less hospitable than the previously mentioned tundra.

There is technically a biome in the modern game very similar to this biome, which is the snowy beach. These are, as the name suggests, snow-covered sandy beaches that look remarkably similar to what ice deserts would have, only with a lot more water. Ice deserts could realistically be brought back to expand on snowy beaches, and would make Minecraft's best frozen seeds even better.

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Shrubland

Shrublands would eventually become modern savanna biomes (Image via Mojang Studios)

Removed: Beta 1.8

Shrublands are also really interesting when it comes to the removed biomes. They were tiny biomes, smaller than the minimum size to spawn a forest and identical to savanna biomes, spawning only a few trees and no short grass. Due to their generation, they would almost appear as blank spaces in generation, where not much appears.

As mentioned, shrublands looked nearly identical to modern savanna biomes, home of Minecraft 1.21's adorable armadillo. It wouldn't be a stretch to assume that the shrubland biome would inspire the modern savanna.

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Java removed biomes/Bedrock unused biomes

Caves and Cliffs is known for revamping and overhauling the game's terrain generation as well as Minecraft ore distribution, but it also shifted a ton of biomes to the unused category in Bedrock and removed them entirely in Java.

The full list of these biomes is as follows:

• Legacy Frozen Ocean
• Desert Lakes
• Mountain Edge
• Deep Warm Ocean
• Hills biome variants
• Badlands Plateau
• Modified Plateau biome variants
• Moodified Wooded Badlands Plateau
• Mushroom Field Shore

They're not getting expanded on in the same way as the rest due to them not technically being fully removed from the game, at least in Bedrock. Additionally, much of the style of terrain these biomes added hasn't been lost. The new terrain generation forms these biomes organically, so they simply weren't needed as specific biomes anymore. They may have lost their title, but not their existance.

For example, the deserts that make up Minecraft's best desert seeds no longer need the desert lakes biome, as these lakes will generate within deserts organically based on terrain height. The biome still exists, i.e., desert lakes exist, but since they generate organically, there's no need for them to exist as a distinct biome.