This blog is no longer the go-to place for official Minecraft news! From now on we’ll be posting snapshots, updates, and lots, lots more on Minecraft.net.
Why have we done this? Learn that and more on Minecraft.net!
Note: we’ll still use this blog for any Mojang news that’s not relevant to Minecraft. There’s not a lot of that about right now but thought it was worth mentioning.
Elytra sounds are now ready, so we bundled them with a few bug fixes and decided to make a Minecraft 1.9.1 pre-release available for everyone to test these changes.
Most of us are going to San Francisco next week to attend GDC, so we will release Minecraft 1.9.1 in two weeks.
Notable changes:
Added Elytra sound effects
Improved AI
Improved entity selectors
Tweaked cooldown mechanics to be less confusing
Applied paper patch 0078
Loot tables now also work in dispensers and droppers
Hoppers can now pull items out of blocked chests
Increased limit for “executed command blocks per tick”
The arrow struck the shield with a impactful “thud!”. Steve peeked around the shield’s edge and saw the arrow was wrapped in a note! Steve excitedly pulled it loose to see what it said…
“You’re happy you had that shield, aren’t you?”
And yes, Steve was pretty happy.
Minecraft has been updated to 1.9! It contains a lot of changes. Most remarkably, the combat mechanics have been updated to make fighting more interesting and offer more map-making options. Here’s a almost complete list of the new and changed features:
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
It is time to stop waiting and start playing. A pre-release of Minecraft 1.9 is now available. We are very excited to enter the final stage before the new version is released.
First the answer to the most asked question: We are currently planning to release the final version of Minecraft 1.9 next week, on Thursday, 25th of February 2016.
And now to the usual release notes. Once we release the final Minecraft 1.9 update, we will also provide a complete list of changes between Minecraft 1.8 and Minecraft 1.9.
Notable changes:
Bugs fixed
Increased durability of shields
Some crystals in the end are protected by cages again
Cobalt is available to download for Xbox 360, Xbox One, and Steam for Windows. It costs $19.99 / £15:99 / €19.99. Stop reading this and download it right now!
: minecraft 
