"Trying to build a skyscraper with hand tools": Minecraft devs swore off yearly updates after giant Caves and Cliffs patch pushed them to the brink

Mojang admits the Caves and Cliffs update's new world generation tech was so much of a monumental task, the studio swore off yearly updates.

Speaking at a GDC 2026 Minecraft panel (attended by and reported on by PC Gamer), general manager Ryan Cooper describes Mojang's approach to player feedback when deciding on new updates. And with the Caves and Cliffs update, Cooper explains, "We were getting so much feedback from our community that we just decided to take on additional work."

Caves and Cliffs ended up releasing throughout 2021, but it was so big, it had to be released in two different content drops – with the first half releasing in June 2021, and the second releasing on the last day of November that same year.

However, in the process of making massive changes to the way worlds are generated, Mojang discovered it needed to update its own technology, too, which resulted in the developers working on a massive Minecraft update alongside upgrading its development tech. Cooper says the team described it as "akin to trying to build a skyscraper with hand tools." And after going through that with Caves and Cliffs, Mojang decided it didn't want to make the same mistake going forward.

"What happened as a result of Caves & Cliffs was we decided that we wanted to move to a more rapid cadence of updates," Cooper says. And a few years later, in 2024, Mojang confirmed it would be ditching its yearly update formula in favor of smaller updates arriving far more frequently, which has so far resulted in four updates per year in 2024 and 2025.

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