After months of waiting, the stable build of Minecraft 1.9 has been released by Mojang, bringing with it hundreds of changes for the beloved sandbox game. Many of the changes in Minecraft’s new Combat Update focus on overhauling the game’s increasingly dated combat mechanics but there’s no shortage of other reasons to get excited in the patch notes for Minecraft 1.9.
As many of you already know, or figured out from the patch’s title, the Minecraft Combat Update is focused (primarily) on improving the game’s combat systems. To that end, Mojang has implemented dual-wielding for the first time, added shields to the list of items players can craft for themselves and introduced special attacks for two different classes of weaponry. There’s a new mob (Shulker), a massive expansion of The End and players finally have the option to resummon the Ender Dragon.
Unfortunately, this marks one of those few occasions when we can’t cross-post patch notes in their entirety. The complete list of changes for Minecraft 1.9 is so long that designer Jens Bergensten was forced to split the patch notes into seven separate posts on reddit. Instead, we’ve cited the summary published on the official Mojang blog post announcing today’s release. Those interested in the complete patch notes for Minecraft 1.9 can find them on the game’s sub-reddit (Part 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 and 7).
Here’s the short list:
- Added shields
- Attacking now has a “cool-down” delay, making it more important to time your attacks
- You can now hold items in both hands (default quick key to swap items is ‘F’)
- Swords have a special sweep attack
- Axes have a special crushing blow attack
- Added the elytra
- New mob: Shulker
- Expanded The End
- Added Chorus plants
- New Purpur blocks
- New End Rod block
- Added dragon head block
- Ender Dragon can be resummoned
- Added beetroot and beetroot soup (from MC:PE)
- Added grass path block
- Added igloos
- Armor protection values have been lowered
- Added tipped arrows
- Added spectral arrows
- Added Frost Walker enchantment and frosted ice block
- Added a whole bunch of new sound effects
- Added sound effect subtitles
- Brewing Stand now requires Blaze Powder to activate
- Added skeleton riders
- We believe we’ve fixed MC-10 and a whole bunch of other issues
- Removed Herobrine
Be sure to check back with iDigitalTimes.com and follow Scott on Twitter for more Minecraft coverage throughout 2016 and for however long Mojang continues to support Minecraft in the years to come.
