Windswept hills biomes.
Windswept hills are uncommon cold biomes that mainly generate in hilly terrain. There are three variants in the biome family.
Contents
Description[]
Windswept hills generate in areas with high erosion and low factor. The grass and leaves are an aqua color, the surface is mostly grassy with occasional patches of stone and many blobs and veins of ores. These are the only biomes, besides mountain biomes, where emerald ore is found. The cliffs of the windswept hills generally peak at roughly Y-level 140, and around Y-level 120 rain starts to be replaced with snow, creating snow-capped hills. Undergound, below the sea level, infested blocks with silverfish can be generated, even below the deepslate layer.
Windswept hills have some unusual features and formations compared to other biomes due to the terrain generation algorithm. Floating blocks and even small floating islands are common as are overhangs and large waterfalls (occasionally, even springs and lavafalls). This can create some impressive views at times. These oddities may be magnified in windswept savannas.
Survival in windswept hills can be challenging to beginners, due to the heights often risking heavy fall damage and higher elevations bringing snow and ice, but can be fairly easy once the player has acclimated to the area and found or made a flat-enough space for shelter. Llamas can also serve as useful pack animals when tamed. Water must be protected by light or a roof to prevent it from freezing when above the snowfall line, however, and the player must be aware of their surroundings to avoid falling off steep cliffs, especially when fighting hostile mobs. Care should also be taken when mining in windswept hills, due to infested stone occasionally generating; the player might get swarmed with silverfish if they're not prepared.
Water buckets can be used to climb windswept hills, by dumping the water onto a higher ledge and climbing up to the ledge. The player can safely collect the water into the bucket and repeat the procedure until the player is on top of the hills.
These biomes generate in areas with high erosion and medium to low temperature which means that they are usually surrounded by temperate, cold and snowy biomes. Oak trees occasionally generate in place of some spruce trees. Llamas can spawn in these biomes.
Variants[]
There are three windswept hills variants (windswept hills, windswept forest and windswept gravelly hills), with two removed variants (gravelly mountains+ and mountain edge) in previous versions.
Windswept Hills[]
| Type |
Cold |
|---|---|
| Rarity |
Uncommon |
| Temperature |
0.2 |
| Blocks |
Grass Block |
| Grass color |
|
| Foliage color |
|
| Water color |
The windswept hills biome is the normal variant. This biome features the standard stony and grassy terrain, with a bit of tall grass and sporadically generated oak and spruce trees. As the climate is cold, rainfall changes to snowfall above approximately Y-level 120 where snow layers form on blocks above that point, along with water freezing into ice. They are one of the two places where llamas can spawn, the other place being savanna plateau biomes.
In Java Edition :
| Mob | Spawn chance | Group size |
|---|---|---|
| Passive category | ||
| Sheep | 12⁄45 | 4 |
| Pig | 10⁄45 | 4 |
| Chicken | 10⁄45 | 4 |
| Cow | 8⁄45 | 4 |
| Llama | 5⁄45 | 4–6 |
| Hostile category | ||
| Spider | 100⁄516.25 | 4 |
| Zombie | 95⁄516.25 | 4 |
| Zombie villager | 5⁄516.25 | 1 |
| Skeleton | 100⁄516.25 | 4 |
| Creeper | 100⁄516.25 | 4 |
| Slime[note 1] | 100⁄516.25 | 4 |
| Enderman | 10⁄516.25 | 1–4 |
| Witch | 5⁄516.25 | 1 |
| Spider Jockey | 1⁄516.25 | 1 |
| Chicken Jockey | 0.25⁄516.25 | 1 |
| Ambient category | ||
| Bat | 10⁄10 | 8 |
- ↑ Only on slime chunks
In Bedrock Edition :
| Mob | Spawn chance | Group size |
|---|---|---|
| Passive category | ||
| Goat | 20⁄83 | 2–3 |
| Sheep | 12⁄83 | 2–3 |
| Pig | 10⁄83 | 1–3 |
| Chicken | 10⁄83 | 2–4 |
| Glow Squid[note 1] | 10⁄83 | 2–4 |
| Cow | 8⁄83 | 2–3 |
| Axolotl[note 2] | 8⁄83 | 1–4 |
| Llama | 5⁄83 | 4–6 |
| Hostile category | ||
| Spider | 100⁄496.25 | 1 |
| Zombie | 95⁄496.25 | 2–4 |
| Zombie villager | 5⁄496.25 | 2–4 |
| Skeleton | 80⁄496.25 | 1–2 |
| Creeper | 100⁄496.25 | 1 |
| Slime[note 3] | 100⁄496.25 | 1 |
| Enderman | 10⁄496.25 | 1–2 |
| Witch | 5⁄496.25 | 1 |
| Spider Jockey | 1⁄496.25 | 1 |
| Chicken Jockey | 0.25⁄496.25 | 1 |
| Ambient category | ||
| Bat | 10⁄10 | 2 |
Windswept Forest[]
| Type |
Cold |
|---|---|
| Rarity |
Uncommon |
| Temperature |
0.2 |
| Blocks |
Grass Block |
| Grass color |
|
| Foliage color |
|
| Water color |
The windswept forest variant has sparse forests of oak and spruce trees. It lacks stony terrain so that the tall grass and trees can generate more often. While the increased wood supply can be useful, the risk of fatal fall damage still exists, especially if this variant generates on the edge of a tall hill that borders a river or another low-elevation biome. This variant generates in areas with high humidity, which means it is usually surrounded by forested biomes like taigas and birch forests
Windswept forest use the same mob spawning chances as the windswept hills.
Windswept Gravelly Hills[]
| Type |
Cold |
|---|---|
| Rarity |
Uncommon |
| Temperature |
0.2 |
| Blocks |
Gravel |
| Grass color |
|
| Foliage color |
|
| Water color |
The windswept gravelly hills variant replaces the top few layers of stone and grass with gravel across its landscape. Due to the gravel replacing most of the grass, trees generate far less often, making this variant relatively barren. Players should be careful when surfacing from underground in this biome, as the top layers of gravel can pose a suffocation hazard. This variant generates in lower humidity values, mainly next to plains and snowy plains.
Windswept gravelly hills use the same mob spawning chances as the windswept hills.
Data values[]
ID[]
| Name | Resource location | Translation key |
|---|---|---|
| Windswept Hills | windswept_hills | biome.minecraft.windswept_hills |
| Windswept Forest | windswept_forest | biome.minecraft.windswept_forest |
| Windswept Gravelly Hills | windswept_gravelly_hills | biome.minecraft.windswept_gravelly_hills |
| Name | Resource location | Numeric ID |
|---|---|---|
| [No displayed name] | extreme_hills | 3 |
| [No displayed name] | extreme_hills_plus_trees | 34 |
| [No displayed name] | extreme_hills_mutated | 131 |
| [No displayed name] | extreme_hills_plus_trees_mutated | 162 |
| [No displayed name] | extreme_hills_edge | 20 |
History[]
| Java Edition pre-Classic | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| rd-20090515 | Random terrain generation introduced, including mountains. | ||||
| Several different terrain generators were used throughout following versions. however, it was not until the world generator used in several versions of infdev until early alpha that it included mountains. | |||||
| At this time mountians were considered structures and randomly generated as part of the world generation algorithm. | |||||
| Java Edition Beta | |||||
| 1.8 | Pre-release | Mountains are now considered their own biome, extreme hills. | |||
| Java Edition | |||||
| 1.1 | 12w01a | Added extreme hills edge biome. it was implemented as a smooth transition between the unpredictable extreme hills terrain and the largely flat terrain of the various other biomes in this world generator. | |||
| 1.7.2 | 13w36a | Extreme hills variants added, along with many other biomes. | |||
| The extreme hills edge biome no longer generates naturally and include spruce trees and a bit of stony patches. | |||||
| Spruce trees and snow layers now generate in extreme hills. | |||||
| The surface now contains large stone, dirt and gravel patches. | |||||
| 1.13 | 18w16a | "Extreme Hills M" has been renamed to "Mutated Extreme Hills". | |||
| "Extreme Hills+ M" has been renamed to "Mutated Extreme Hills+". | |||||
| 18w19a | "Extreme Hills" has been renamed to "Mountains". | ||||
| "Extreme Hills Edge" has been renamed to "Mountain Edge". | |||||
| "Extreme Hills+" has been renamed to "Wooded Mountains". | |||||
| "Mutated Extreme Hills" has been renamed to "Gravelly Mountains". | |||||
| "Mutated Extreme Hills+" has been renamed to "Gravelly Mountains+". | |||||
| pre5 | The ID extreme_hills has been changed to mountains.
| ||||
The ID smaller_extreme_hills has been changed to mountain_edge. | |||||
The ID extreme_hills_with_trees has been changed to wooded_mountains. | |||||
The ID mutated_extreme_hills has been changed to gravelly_mountains. | |||||
The ID mutated_extreme_hills_with_trees has been changed to modified_gravelly_mountains. | |||||
| September 28, 2019 | During MINECON Live 2019, the mountains won the community biome vote; additions were improved terrain generation, powder snow, and goats. | ||||
| October 3, 2020 | The Caves & Cliffs update was announced at Minecraft Live 2020, showing a sneak peek at goats and the new mountain generation. | ||||
| March 5, 2021 | It is announced that the biome renamed to mountains in 1.13 may be renamed back to Extreme Hills. | ||||
| 1.18 | Experimental Snapshot 1 | Removed Gravelly Mountains+. | |||
| experimental snapshot 2 | Old "mountains" have been renamed back to "extreme hills", and "gravelly mountains" into "gravelly hills". | ||||
| experimental snapshot 4 | Increased the extremity of terrain in extreme hills. | ||||
| 21w40a | "Extreme Hills" has been renamed to "Windswept Hills". | ||||
| "Wooded Mountains" has been renamed to "Windswept Forest". | |||||
| "Gravelly Hills" has been renamed to "Windswept Gravelly Hills". | |||||
The ID extreme_hills has been changed to windswept_hills. | |||||
The ID wooded_mountains has been changed to windswept_forest. | |||||
The ID gravelly_hills has been changed to windswept_gravelly_hills. | |||||
| The gravelly mountains+ and mountain edge biomes have been removed. | |||||
| Pocket Edition Alpha | |||||
| v0.1.0 | Added biomes, with small cliffs generating within them. | ||||
| v0.9.0 | build 1 | Added a proper extreme hills biome, along with many other biomes. | |||
| Only pine trees now generate (not oak trees as well) in extreme hills. The trees are found only in the wooded variant. | |||||
| v0.9.5 | Added extreme hills+ variant. | ||||
| v0.11.0 | build 1 | Added extreme hills m and extreme hills+ m variants. | |||
| build 10 | The amount of gravel in extreme hills m biomes has been increased. | ||||
| Bedrock Edition | |||||
| 1.2.0 | ? | Added snow layers to extreme hills. | |||
| Caves & Cliffs (experimental) | beta 1.16.200.52 | Added goats, which currently spawn in extreme hills as a placeholder. | |||
| beta 1.16.220.50 | Goats no longer spawn in the extreme hills biome. | ||||
| beta 1.17.30.23 | Gravelly mountains+ no longer generate naturally. | ||||
| beta 1.17.40.20 | The windswept hills variants became rarer. | ||||
| Legacy Console Edition | |||||
| TU5 | CU1 | 1.00 | Patch 1 | 1.0.1 | Added Extreme Hills biome. |
| TU31 | CU19 | 1.22 | Patch 3 | Added Extreme Hills variant biomes. | |
Issues[]
Issues relating to "Windswept Hills" are maintained on the bug tracker. Report issues there.
Gallery[]
Another view of a windswept hill biome.
Windswept hills as seen from above.
An example of an overhang generated within windswept hills.
A stacked windswept hills biome.
A floating island generated above some windswept hills.
Windswept hills and a windswept forest shown side by side.
Another view of windswept gravelly hills biome.
Huge cliffside generated in windswept hill biome.
River running between a forest and a windswept hills biome with a sunset in the background.
A tree which generated under a cliff in a windswept hills biome.
A large floating cliff in windswept hill biome. Check the image for seed and coordinates.
Windswept hills.
Windswept gravelly hills.
Trees growing in a windswept forest biome.
Small An ocean biome, completely enclosed by the windswept hills.
Windswept gravelly hills cliffside.
Heart-shaped hole in a windswept hills cliff.
Large chunk of floating windswept hills creating some sort of skybridge.
See also[]
References[]
