New Minecraft: Bedrock Edition update improves sounds and experimental villager trading

What you need to know

• Minecraft: Bedrock Edition gets regular updates with minor improvements and fixes, and today it's getting another.
• Version 1.20.40 follows the last update at the end of September with pretty substantial improvements to audio and vanilla parity.
• The update also includes changes to the experimental villager trading updates Mojang Studios is testing.
• Minecraft: Bedrock Edition 1.20.40 is now rolling out to players across Xbox, Windows PC, PlayStation, Switch, and mobile devices.

Another day, another Minecraft update. Mojang Studios is now in the process of releasing Minecraft: Bedrock Edition 1.20.40 to all players, with a solid number of improvements, fixes, and changes included. Most notably, players can expect pretty nice changes to audio, vanilla parity, and the experimental changes to villager trading Mojang Studios has been testing.

It's not as exciting as the last Minecraft update, which added two new features, but it's still a decent release that further improves one of the best Xbox games. Now, fall damage has been tweaked to match Java Edition, including passing fall damage through boats and mounts before reaching the player. Lava and water flowing mechanics have been updated. The Goat Horn can be heard from farther away. Finally, Iron Golems will stop insta-suffocating because they spawned in a too-small place.

Plenty of audio is also enjoying tweaks. Guardians now flop when on land, Wither Skeletons earn their own unique sounds, cats can beg for food, and glass bottles sound more dynamic and realistic. Oh, and water splashing has been improved, as has been ambient noise when underwater. All of this comes alongside the regular batch of fixes and quality-of-life improvements.

No, it's not a follow-up to the first Minecraft 1.21 snapshot, but there is an experimental update here. Mojang Studios has been testing major changes to how trading with villagers works, and has received a ton of feedback from the community who are not happy with the changes. In this update, Mojang is implementing a lot of that feedback with some major changes to the system, which can be tested by enabling the experimental toggle when creating a new world.

Minecraft: Bedrock Edition 1.20.40 is now rolling out to players on all platforms, including Xbox Series X|S, Xbox One, Windows PC, PS4|5, Nintendo Switch, Android, and iOS. It's not the most interesting update, but it's still nice to see. If you want to learn about properly exciting changes coming to Minecraft in the future, you can catch up on everything announced during Minecraft Live 2023 right here on Windows Central.