Experimental Features in Minecraft: Bedrock Edition

Note

To see full documentation about experimental features and APIs, select the Minecraft Bedrock Experimental APIs option. image showing the Document Versions Dropdown.

With each retail version of Minecraft: Bedrock Edition, there are a few features that are currently in an experimental state. Experimental Features can be toggled on for creators who are interested in testing the latest features offered in the preview, and retail versions of Minecraft.

Note

The Experiments toggle list is subject to frequent changes and could have entirely different options from the ones in your own version of Minecraft. Also, the screen shots shown here might look different.

Experimental Features available in Minecraft: Bedrock Edition

There are two sets of experimental features available, depending on whether you are using a retail version of Minecraft or the latest version of Minecraft Preview.

Retail

These are the currently available Experimental toggles in the 1.21.0 retail build at the time of this writing.

GAMEPLAY - Change the way your world works

Experimental Toggle Description
Villager Trade Rebalancing Contains updated trades for villages for the purpose of rebalancing

ADD-ON CREATORS - For creators of game packs and other add-ons

Experimental Toggle Description
Holiday Creator Features Add data-driven block and item technology to customize block shape, rotation, damage and more
Custom Biomes Create custom biomes and change world generation
Upcoming Creator Features Includes adjustable fog parameters
Beta APIs Use "-beta" versions of API modules in add-on packs
Experimental Cameras Contains example camera presets (the camera command is no longer experimental)

Preview

These are the currently available Experimental toggles in the 1.21.20.23 preview build at the time of this writing.

GAMEPLAY - Change the way your world works

Experimental Toggle Description
Villager Trade Rebalancing Contains updated trades for villages for the purpose of rebalancing

ADD-ON CREATORS - For creators of game packs and other add-ons

Experimental Toggle Features
Custom Biomes Create custom biomes and change world generation
Upcoming Creator Features Includes adjustable fog parameters
Beta APIs Use "-beta" versions of API modules in add-on packs
Creator Cameras: New Third Person Presets Contains new third person over the shoulder follow_orbit camera preset
Creator Cameras: Focus Target Camera Enables behavior for the existing free camera to target an entity
Render Dragon Features for Creators Enable the deferred rendering pipeline. Requires a PBR-enables resource pack and compatible hardware.

How do I activate an Experimental Features toggle for my world?

You can activate an experimental toggle for any of your new or existing worlds.

Warning

Activating experimental features that are still under development means that your world might crash, break, or not work with future updates.

If you're planning to build content that you want to share with the community, it would be best to do it in a non-experimental world.

Toggle Experimental Features in a New World

If you are building a new world from scratch to test experimental features, you can toggle which features you want enabled in the Game Settings.

  1. Under Game settings, navigate down to Experiments and select a toggle to enable the feature.

    Image showcasing 4 toggles for experimental features available in Minecraft

  2. When you get the popup asking if you're sure, select Turn on Experiments anyway.

    image showing a pop up to confirm if you want ot activate experimental features in Minecraft.

Toggle Experimental Features in an Existing World

If you want to add experimental features to an existing world, open that world's game settings and activate the toggles just like you would for a new world.

Note

A copy of your world will be generated automatically after you activate an experimental feature toggle. You can also manually create copies of your world as an extra precaution, in case something goes wrong.

After you select Activate Experiments, a copy of your existing world will be created. The copy will have the same name as the original world with "Copy of..." added in front of it.

image showing a duplicated world

Verify that the World has Experimental Features Enabled

After you've created a world that has an experimental feature toggle enabled, your world will get a tag next to the game mode in your Worlds list that says Experimental.

image showcasing a survival world that has the Experimental tag applied

Another way to identify if your world is using experimental toggles is to visit the settings for your world. In the Game world settings, scroll down to the Experiments section to see which experiments are enabled.

Important

Worlds that use experimental features cannot be restored to a non-experimental state.

What's Next?

If you like experimenting and testing things in Minecraft, you could learn more about the GameTest Framework.