Minecraft 1.9 Combat Update

Minecraft version 1.9 is named Combat Update, but Mojang’s representatives haven’t specified the release date of it. Combat Update was accidentally discovered by reddit user 3dDeters, on April 1, when he took a look at the April Fools 15w14a snapshot and saw a QR code hidden in the pattern. According to and Dinnerbone of Mojang, new features will be added within the game, because the developers prefer to not do doing internal code rewrites like in the previous version. Below, you’ll find a list of additions, but which may change until the update will be officially released.

For now, we have three snapshots of 1.9: 15w31a, launched on July 29th, 15w31b, which was released the next day and which came with 26 bug fixes, and 15w31c was the third snapshot that came in the third day and which brought fixes for bugs and crashes from 15w31a and 15w31b (33 issues were solved).

So, some of the additions in 1.9 are:

Gameplay: the players can change their dominant hand on their player model and when attacking, they can use the main hand. If they’re using the first person view and they’re not holding anything in the other hand, it becomes invisible, but when there are bows in the other hand, they can be used. Also, when pressing F, the players can swap items between their hands.

Status effects: there’s an effect for levitation status and for when a player is hit by shulker projectiles; it has the potential to kill from fall damage; the players can involuntarily float high into the air and in higher levels, the floating happens faster. If the player falls from a high enough elevation, he receives regular fall damage.

Glowing status effect: makes the player’s outline glow, when they’re hit by spectral arrows and this effect prevents the players from hiding from others, when they’re hit.

Blocks: the chorus flower spawns on the top of the chorus plant, but it doesn’t drop even if the supporting block is destroyed; the chorus plant can be planted using chorus flowers, it drops chorus fruit and it breaks when the supporting block is broken; the dragon head has a mouth that opens and closes repeatedly if the player wears it and moves and the jaws moves up and down if the head is powered with redstone; End rod; End stone brick; Grass path; Purpur block; Purpur pillar; Purpur slab; Structure block.

Items: Arrows; Beetroot; Beetroot soup; Beetroot seeds; Chorus fruit; Popped chorus fruit; Shulker spawn egg.

Mobs: Shulker, which is short for “Shell Lurker”.

The entire list with additions and changes can be found on minecraft.gamepedia.com.