August 1 release will unify single- and multiplayer engines, add trading with NPCs, trip wires for traps.

Minecraft's PC version will receive one of its most significant overhauls since release with its 1.3 patch on August 1, according to the Mojang blog. The first-person exploration and creation game will receive several optimizations as well as new features to enhance its randomly generated worlds and their mining masses.

This pit, much like Minecraft, is hard to escape once you fall into it.

Mojang stated that the most significant change will be the re-implementation of Minecraft's single-player mode as a shell on top of its multiplayer, unifying any future bug fixes or mods. The game will also receive a currency system for trading with non-player character villagers in the form of emeralds, and trip wires for the creation of more intricate traps and mechanisms. New players will also be able to start with "bonus chests" to ease their first few hours in their worlds. Full patch notes are available on this Reddit-user-compiled thread.

Single-player performance is expected to suffer slightly for lower-end PCs as Mojang works to optimize performance for both simulating and emulating the world. It is not known when or if the changes made in 1.3 will be seen in Minecraft: Xbox 360 Edition.

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