Initial Release: December 20, 2010
Latest Version: Beta 1.8.1 (September 15, 2011)
Price: Paid – US$18.00 / €14.95
Java Edition Beta was the sixth and final development phase of Minecraft before the full release. It followed the Alpha stage and introduced major gameplay improvements, new features, and expanded content. Beta was officially announced on December 11, 2010, and launched nine days later. This phase included a 50% price increase from Alpha, along with updates to the website and game disclaimer.
Key Features
- Game Modes: Reintroduced Creative mode alongside Survival.
- Achievements & Statistics: Introduced in-game tracking of player accomplishments.
- Inventory: Server-side inventories and inventory tooltips.
- Weather: Rain and snow effects.
- Biomes & Trees: Rewritten biome generation code, greater tree variety.
- Lighting & Graphics: Updated lighting, sunrise/sunset effects, water bubbles, explosions, and void particles.
- Structures: Naturally generated structures such as strongholds, mineshafts, and villages.
- Mobs: Added squid, endermen, silverfish, cave spiders, and tameable wolves.
- Health & Hunger: New food system with stackable items and hunger mechanic.
- Combat: Critical hits, charged bows, experience orbs, sprinting, and blocking.
- Redstone & Mechanisms: Introduced repeaters, dispensers, note blocks, powered/detector rails, trapdoors, pistons, and sticky pistons.
- Blocks & Recipes: New blocks such as sandstone, lapis lazuli blocks; new recipes introduced.
- Farming: Added melons, pumpkins, and improved farming mechanics.
- Beds: Can skip nights and reset spawn points.
- Items: Maps, dyes, and other new craftable items.
- Menu & UI: New Minecraft logo, animated main menu background, and improved GUI.
Major Beta Updates
- Beta 1.0: Introduced server-side inventories and item tooltips.
- Beta 1.1: Added support for special holiday events.
- Beta 1.2: New blocks, squid, sheep variants, and trees.
- Beta 1.3: Beds, redstone repeaters, new slabs.
- Beta 1.4: Cookies, wolves, new logo, and April Fools’ locked chest.
- Beta 1.5: Cobwebs, new saplings, rails, charged creepers, and weather effects.
- Beta 1.6: Tall grass variants, trapdoors, and maps.
- Beta 1.7: Pistons and shears added.
- Beta 1.8 (Adventure Update Part I): Adventuring features and updated terrain generation.
Trivia
- Some Beta sound effects were updated and no longer use the old sound files stored in the minecraft.jar.
- The first versions of Xbox 360 Edition and MinecraftEdu were based on Beta 1.6.6.