Minecraft is adding ice caves beneath the Overworld’s cold biomes, giving players a new underground area to mine and a frozen zombie variant to fight. The studio announced the feature during Minecraft LIVE on September 26 but supplied only a “coming soon” window.

In the complete first-party announcement, Minecraft describes the caves as a rich source of ore with both beauty and unusual hazards. Frozen zombies will drop ice balls when defeated, while players who lose the encounter can become frozen themselves.

Those details establish the basic explore-fight-reward loop, but not its full rules. Minecraft has not identified a Java or Bedrock preview version, explained how rare the caves will be, or detailed what ice balls do after players collect them. The announcement also leaves the duration and effects of the frozen condition for a later update.

Minecraft is adding ice caves beneath the Overworld’s cold biomes, giving players a new underground area to mine and a frozen zombie variant to fight. The studio announced the feature during Minecraft LIVE on September 26 but supplied only a “coming soon” window.

In the complete first-party announcement, Minecraft describes the caves as a rich source of ore with both beauty and unusual hazards. Frozen zombies will drop ice balls when defeated, while players who lose the encounter can become frozen themselves.

Those details establish the basic explore-fight-reward loop, but not its full rules. Minecraft has not identified a Java or Bedrock preview version, explained how rare the caves will be, or detailed what ice balls do after players collect them. The announcement also leaves the duration and effects of the frozen condition for a later update.