Minecraft 1.18 Caves And Cliffs Part 2: Biggest Changes, Expected Release Date, And More!

Caves and mountains have never received much attention in Minecraft for many years. The 1.17 Caves and Cliffs update part 1 has changed that a little, however... the main part of the update is yet to be released.

During the Minecraft Live event recently, Mojang has revealed more info about part 2. In this article, we are going to showcase everything you need to know about Minecraft 1.18 Caves and Cliffs Part 2, including its expected release date and biggest changes.

Minecraft 1.18 Caves And Cliffs Part 2 is definitely going to come out this year

1. Biggest changes in Minecraft 1.18

As leaked before, Minecraft 1.18 Caves and Cliffs noteable features would be mostly around caves and its new Deep Dark biome.

Caves overhaul

More caves types are added to the game in order to fit in with the new individual biomes. Many of them will have aquifers or bodies of water, with deepslate replacing stone from Y=0 onwards.

Three new types of Noise Caves are added: Cheese, Spaghetti and Noodle. Cheeses are huge caves containing aquifers and ore while Spaghetti and Noodle are smaller long caves with small aquifers.
Lush caves are filled with plant - the whole thing is covered in cave vines, glow berries, and drip leaves and populated by axolotls.
Dripstone Caves are full of pointed dripstone and dripstone blocks. These will form stalagmites and stalactites

Mountains overhaul

Mojang is going to add 6 new sub-biomes heading to the mountainous regions. Once the game is updated, you could use commands to find biomes in Minecraft to take a look at these new additions.

Mountain Grove: The first snow-covered mountainous area in the game. Players can find plenty of rabbits and spruce trees here.
Mountain Meadow: Low mountain regions. Players can find various flowers and sweet berry bushes here.
Snowy Slopes: Higher than the other two Snowy Slopes are home to goats, snow, and ice.
Snow Capped Peaks: This biome will only generate if the surrounding biomes are too cold for Lofty Peaks. You can find snow blocks and packed ice here.
Lofty Peaks: This biome will only generate if the mountain is high enough and the surrounding biomes are warm. Lofty Peaks are covered by snow.
Stony Peaks: This biome is a version of lofty/snowcapped peaks that features stone and gravel instead of snow and ice. This variant is for avoiding temperature clashes such as a snowcapped peak in the middle of a jungle.

2. Minecraft 1.18 Caves And Cliffs part 2 expected release date

Mojang officially announced the split of Caves and Cliffs update in April this year, with the 1.17 patch coming out afterward. Furthermore, they also stated that the second part would come out at the end of 2021. While we haven't gotten an official announcement yet, many insiders have already come up with an expected release date for Minecraft 1.18 Caves And Cliffs part 2:

At the recent Minecraft Live 2021, Mojang officially confirmed the 1.18 update is going to come out in 1 or 2 months. The "deep dark" cut features are delayed to 1.19 "the Wild", alongside the Warden (this is the reason why they managed to make it on time). Noise caves, biomes, and other new Overworld features are almost ready to be shipped out, with devs making final tweaks.

Apparently, Minecraft 1.18 Caves and Cliffs update is going to come out in early December 2021. The devs need to launch it early as they won't be available during the holidays. Furthermore, a bug fix update is always released after a major update... so they need to release early to save time.