The biomes are bountiful, the End is vast, and the Nether is bone-chilling despite it being like a thousand degrees in there. But caves? Caves are arguably the most neglected part of Minecraft. So here’s our picks for the best cave mods that give your vanilla caves the attention they deserve.
10. Advanced Mining Dimension
Check Out This Mod Supported Versions: 1.14-1.16 An entire dimension consisting of caves and… well, that’s it. Caves. But honestly, what more could a miner ask for? You can get to this dimension using a teleporter. Just make sure you can find your way back to it, or you’ll get stuck in the depths! Maybe leave a trail of breadcrumbs?
9. Bigger-Caves
Check Out This Mod Supported Versions: 1.17 Are regular caves just not doing it for you? What, do you feel like you’re too good for them? Well an ego that massive needs some room to breathe, and that’s where this mod comes in. Bigger-Caves makes the caves in your world generate much, much bigger. It turns your game into what the 1.18 update offers.
8. YUNG’s Better Mineshafts
Check Out This Mod Supported Versions: 1.12-1.16 Mojang spiced caves up by adding mineshafts. So how do you spice them up even more? By making the mineshafts better, of course. YUNG’s Better Mineshafts makes mineshafts much more interesting by adding several new features to them. These features include biome variants of mineshafts and several structural additions.
7. YUNG’s Better Dungeons
Check Out This Mod Supported Versions: 1.16 For a structure that had a spinoff game named after it, Minecraft dungeons are kind of boring. They’re just so…square. And I know that it’s supposed to be a dungeon, but they just feel so claustrophobic. Did Mojang really choose to sacrifice aesthetics for realistic claustrophobia? YUNG clearly values different things from Mojang, and this is evident in how spacious the new dungeons in this mod are. With how nice these new dungeons look, I wouldn’t even mind getting stuck in them. Except maybe the “spider caves” dungeon. Spiders are scary! In addition to adding new dungeons, this mod also revamps vanilla dungeons to look nicer. YUNG also throws a banner in there for the monsters to look at when they get bored. How considerate.
6. Volcanic Caverns
Check Out This Mod Supported Versions: 1.17 Lava is a miner’s worst fear. It’s the reason for the old Minecraft proverb: “whatever you do, don’t dig straight down!” Many miners have protested this proverb, but few have lived to regret it. Volcanic Caverns turns the proverb “don’t dig straight down” into “DON’T DIG STRAIGHT DOWN!” The mod adds caverns that are filled with lavafalls and magma cubes. Your mining experience just got a lot sweatier. Maybe you can squeeze your sweat into a bucket and use it to solidify the lava?
5. Extended Caves
Check Out This Mod Supported Versions: 1.14, 1.16 Do you enjoy finding buried treasure? How about some super buried treasure? These treasures are so buried that you need to go into caves to find them. Well treasure pots are one of the many new features that Extended Caves offers to make your cave systems more interesting. This mod also adds new structures, blocks, and items, so that you’ll actually want to explore caves out of your own free will – instead of being coerced into it because you desperately need diamonds.
4. Hardcore Spelunking
Check Out This Mod Supported Versions: 1.12 This is the type of mod you get if you either a) love caves, or b) hate caves but desperately wish you loved them. Hardcore Spelunking removes your ability to strip mine. And just like real miners, you’ll be forced into the darkness of the caves. Pretty hardcore stuff – but what did you expect? The mod does this by making it so that there’s bedrock where there aren’t caves. This obviously only applies to the underground, so you won’t see random bedrock trees and hills. Although, that would be kind of cool. Someone should make a mod for that.
3. Worley’s Caves
Check Out This Mod Supported Versions: 1.10, 1.12, 1.14-1.16 Worley’s Caves will give you hours and hours of cave-exploration fun. With this mod installed, cave networks become nearly endless, so you’ll be exploring caves to the point of eye strain. Worley’s Caves will make the underground feel alive. Seriously, these cave networks will have you feeling like you’re exploring Mother Earth’s brain synapses. And the monsters in them only prove how angry she is at us for the whole polluting-the-world thing.
2. Cave Biomes
Check Out This Mod Supported Versions: 1.15-1.17 What’s the one thing that all the biomes in Minecraft have in common? They’re only really noticeable when you’re aboveground. The caves have always been kind of boring. This mod adds 25 new cave biomes to spice things up – and to make caves in Minecraft more worthy of exploring.
1. YUNG’s Better Caves
YUNG’s Better Caves (Forge) YUNG’s Better Caves (Fabric) Supported Versions: 1.12, 1.14-1.16 I swear YUNG didn’t pay us. YUNG just makes really good cave mods. YUNG’s Better Caves enhances caves by adding in lava caverns, underground lakes and rivers, flooded caverns, and more. The caves in this mod are like philosophy – because the deeper you go, the wackier things get. Seriously, this developer must love caves. Or maybe he hates them so much that he felt the need to make 3 different cave mods for them to finally be worth exploring. Legend has it, if you look into the reflection of cave water and chant “bloody YUNG, bloody YUNG, bloody YUNG” but thirteen times, YUNG appears behind you with a new cave enhancement mod.
