Minecraft Bedrock 1.17.0.56 Beta Patch Notes: Full list of changes and download process

Players have long been excited about the new Minecraft Bedrock 1.17.0.56 Beta. Players will be happy to know that a new list of changes has come out about the Beta.

This Beta includes an interesting new experimental change: aquifers. These aquifers aren't like the regular ones players would see in real life, they're large underground lava aquifers. This is an interesting move from developers, as most players thought aquifers would only include water.

But there are several more changes than that in the new Beta. Here is the full list of changes and the download process for the new Minecraft Bedrock 1.17.0.56 Beta.

Minecraft Bedrock 1.17.0.56 Beta Edition: Experimental Changes

Lava Aquifers new feature (Image via windowscentral)

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

Non-Experimental Features and Fixes

Axolotl

• Axolotl no longer attacks invisible mobs
• Axolotl textures have been updated
• Bred Axolotl maintain their color after being placed from a Bucket (MCPE-123328)

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 (MCPE-126726)
• Amethyst Geodes were made slightly rarer

Azalea

• Bonemealing Azalea/Flowering Azalea now correctly turns into a tree if placed on Moss Block (MCPE-125767)

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 (MCPE-123571)
• When bonemealing Small Dripleaf, the resulting Big Dripleaf is at least 2 blocks tall (MC-214159)

Dripstone

• Mobs can once again pathfind around Pointed Dripstone

Glow Squid

• Naturally spawned Glow Squid now despawn (MCPE-126701)
• Using Pick Block on a Glow Squid in Creative now gives the Glow Squid Egg (MCPE-126946)

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 (MCPE-116205)
• Fences and Walls no longer connect to Powder Snow in Bedrock (MCPE-113504)
• Fog effect is no longer applied to the third-person camera when the camera isn't inside Powder Snow (MCPE-126028)
• 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 (MCPE-124414)
• Powder Snow no longer has one corner that collides with mobs

Features and Bug Fixes

Mobs

• Skeletons transforming in to Strays now play appropriate transformation sounds
• Withers no longer take freeze damage from Powder Snow (MCPE-126788)
• Bees no longer gather nectar from Sweet Berry Bushes
• Bees can once again enter Beehives and Bee Nests (MCPE-122705)

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 (MCPE-94178)
• When a Player using the touch interface presses and holds the crafting output window, they can rapidly craft items up to one stack (MCPE-28689)

Iron and 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 (MCPE-105330)

Player Animations

• Fixed Players showing the Bow holding animation after respawning when killed by another Player (MCPE-58861)
• Fixed issue where certain items (Bow, Cossbow, Trident, shield in main hand) wouldn't bob with View Bobbing turned on (MCPE-125853)

Translation

• Removed Lit Deepslate Redstone translation (MCPE-123605)

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 (MCPE-120336)

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 (MCPE-119701)

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 (MCPE-58557)

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

How to download the new Beta

To download the new Minecraft Beta, players will need to go through a few different steps depending on the device they are using to play.

Windows and Xbox 1

If the player is on Xbox 1 or Windows, then they must simply download the Xbox Insider Hub app. Once this is downloaded, players should enter the app and click on their Minecraft game.

In the Minecraft game menu, there should be an option for players to opt-in to the latest Minecraft Beta. Players should click on this option.

Android

For Android players, the process is even simpler. Players should enter their Google Play Store app and locate Minecraft. Once Minecraft has been located, there should be an option in the game menu to opt-in to the latest Minecraft Beta.

A word of warning about Minecraft Betas

Before players opt into any Minecraft Beta, they should save and download all of their previous worlds. Minecraft Betas are incomplete and often unstable versions of Minecraft. They have the potential to corrupt previously made Minecraft worlds, which is why players need to save their world progress before downloading a Beta.

Players should also report their feedback about the Beta to the Minecraft developers team. Players should also be sure to report potential bugs and glitches within the game as well. This will help developers fix the game before the final release.