The upcoming Minecraft Caves & Cliffs update has been delayed...sort of. Mojang says the update has been more difficult to develop than it anticipated, so it's splitting Caves & Cliffs in two. Part one is still coming this summer, but part two won't arrive until the holiday season.
Why has the Minecraft Caves & Cliffs update been delayed?
In an announcement on the official Mojang website, the studio says it has "found it difficult" to develop the Caves & Cliffs update within the original release timeframe without compromising on quality. As such, Mojang says it's splitting Caves & Cliffs in two, with part one coming this summer and part two due "around the holiday season". Including all of the planned content in an update this summer would have "meant compromising on quality", according to Mojang, and would have made overcoming "significant technical challenges" impossible.
The studio also says that it wants to prioritize its team's health. Shipping all intended features in the Caves & Cliffs update this summer would have meant the team working "very long hours" without a guarantee everything would actually be finished on time. Mojang also points to continued working from home as "still challenging" in terms of both morale and teamwork, meaning the update is taking longer to develop than it perhaps would have if the team was in the office.
What content can we expect for Minecraft this summer?
The first part of the update, which is scheduled for this summer, will focus on "blocks and mobs", according to Mojang designer Henrik Kniberg. Blocks include biome blocks such as dripstone cave blocks, deepslate ore variants, glow lichen, and glow ink, among other things. We're also expecting part one of the Caves & Cliffs update for Minecraft to include mobs like the axolotl, the goat, and the glow squid.
Copper generation and geodes are examples of smaller world generation features you'll see in part one, but for the most part, world generation will be the focus of part two of the update. This is where you'll find new caves, new mountains, and new world height, as well as biome placement. Kniberg says this is because world generation poses the most significant technical challenges for Mojang, and also because it's easier to bring all major world changes in a single update so players can more easily adjust.
If you want more information about what's coming in the Caves & Cliffs Minecraft update, you can check out the official Mojang FAQ. The studio says it'll share more information on exactly what's coming in each part of the update "in the coming weeks", so you can expect more information summarily. We'll bring you more on this as soon as we get it.
How do you feel about this split? Let us know in the comments below!