Minecraft 1.18 Experimental Snapshot Adds Stony Peaks Biome

Caves and Cliffs Part 1 delivered many of the update's headline features, but Minecraft 1.18 was still waiting with major world-generation changes. One Experimental Snapshot gave Java players an early look at a new mountain biome and several terrain adjustments planned for Caves and Cliffs Part 2.

Minecraft 1.18 Experimental Snapshot Overview

The Experimental Snapshot introduced Stony Peaks, a mountain biome tied to the upcoming 1.18 update. Stony Peaks works as a stone-and-gravel variation of Lofty Peaks and Snow Capped Peaks, helping mountains fit better when they generate near warmer regions.

The biome was planned to join Grove, Meadow, Snowy Slopes, and Snow Capped Peaks in the official update. Players who wanted to test the experimental version could find the official release instructions here.

Major Patch Note Highlights

The snapshot did more than add Stony Peaks. It also adjusted biome placement, mountain generation, aquifers, beaches, spawning, and several world-generation problems.

Key changes included:

• Biome placement was adjusted to reduce temperature clashes, such as snowy biomes appearing inside deserts. These clashes could still happen, but less often.
• Biome placement became noisier and more varied again, making microbiomes more likely while usually keeping matching temperatures.
• Red sand returned, with badlands adjusted so they could appear in flat areas near plateaus and generate red sand higher up.
• Peak biomes and meadows became less likely to appear in flat, low-elevation areas.
• Shattered terrain cliffs were smoothed so they looked less like chunk errors.
• Snowy slopes and snowcapped peaks stopped placing dirt under snow, making mountains look cleaner.
• Stony Peaks was added as a mountain biome using stone and gravel instead of snow and ice, helping avoid temperature clashes such as snowy peaks rising out of jungles.
• Structures were added to some new mountain biomes. Pillager outposts could generate in all new mountain biomes, while villages could generate in meadows.
• Beaches were adjusted to appear more often on flat coastlines instead of hilly areas, and stone shores were reduced.
• Coastlines and riverbanks became less likely to break because of aquifers. Local water levels were mostly used away from rivers and oceans, while cave openings and ravines near oceans or rivers mostly used sea level.
• Inland low-elevation areas became less likely to contain flooded caves everywhere.
• Aquifers could generate deeper and connect more often with lower cave systems, sometimes creating air pockets below deep lakes.
• More high-frequency variation was added to aquifers so massive water-filled cave regions were less common.
• Goat spawning was fixed for the new mountain biomes.
• Swamps became less likely to overlap cold or dry biomes and stopped placing hanging water.
• Desert temples generated on the surface instead of at a fixed Y level.
• Eroded badlands no longer created floating pillars above water.
• Grass stopped generating underwater.
• Incorrect surface placement, such as grass patches in deserts, became less likely.
• River biomes became less likely to generate in dry mountain gorges, since the game did not support actual rivers above sea level.
• Mob spawning speed was normalized so it no longer sped up in low terrain or slowed down in high terrain, making it closer to 1.17 spawning at Y=64.

Why Stony Peaks Matters

Stony Peaks was a practical solution to a visual problem. Snowy mountains rising out of warm biomes could look strange, so the stone-and-gravel version gave Minecraft another way to create dramatic peaks without forcing snow where it did not fit.

Combined with the broader aquifer and biome-placement changes, the snapshot showed Mojang refining the 1.18 terrain system before the full Caves and Cliffs Part 2 release.