Minecraft Java Edition Update Delivers Underground Lakes In Caves

This week the folks at Minecraft released a new update for the Java edition of the game before the rest of the Minecraft universe. This update adds "Noise Caves", a system of generating caves which in itself includes two sorts of cave generation. One is called "Cheese Caves", the other is called "Spaghetti caves."

Cheese caves are the sort with a bunch of holes, like swiss cheese. Caverns, massive caverns, and the most tiny of sizes of holes throughout the system. Spaghetti caves are likely the sort you've seen before. Or the sort you might've expected to see before. Spaghetti caves are long squiggly tunnels. The noodles can be fat, the noodles can be thin, short or stout.

This new system can create aquifers. This is a water system with a local water level, independent of sea level. Because of the way these water systems generate, they can create underground lakes of immense size. It'll be interesting to see if these sorts of underground lakes also include links to secret caves below said lakes, or if it'll all be flooded beyond the update. For now, it's more likely it'll all be water. No secret entrances to pyramids or anything like that – unless you make one yourself, of course.

In this update, for the moment, aquifer only appear below y31. All noise caves between y21 and y63 (standard sea level) "will be flooded with water". This is a sort of a glitch, at the moment. Developers behind this update suggest that "noise cave entrances will essentially be lakes" for now – this will be fixed "later" they noted.

This update is Minecraft: Java Edition snapshot 21w06a. This update can be attained now, and includes bits of the Caves and Cliffs Update that'll be coming to more platforms later this year. To gain access to this update, you'll need to allow snapshots in your Minecraft launcher. Inside your Minecraft Launcher, enable snapshots in your "installations" tab, and bang! There's your update.