Minecraft 1.9 coming next week, pre-release available now

Minecraft once again made the news today with their announcement that they would deliver real world “Mine Chests” for $30/month. There is now even more Minecraft news to report on, and this time it has to do with the actual game.

A pre-release of Minecraft 1.9 is now available, and it has entered its final stage before a final version is officially released next week, on February 25th. While a complete list of changes won’t be out until the final release, Mojang has listed the usual release notes on their website:

Notable changes:

• Bugs fixed
• Increased durability of shields
• Some crystals in the end are protected by cages again
• Added 34.7% more hype for Minecraft 1.9

Bugs fixed:

• [Bug MC-96863] – Marker ArmorStand Should Not Have Passenger Offset
• [Bug MC-97217] – Weird placement of player while riding an entity after swimming with elytra
• [Bug MC-97235] – Resource pack in minecraft world save file not working
• [Bug MC-97251] – Rail Duplication Glitch

To get the pre-release, you first need open your launcher and press the “new profile” button. Next, name that profile “snapshots” (without the quotes) and check the box which says “experimental developmental snapshots.” To end the process, simply hit save. If you want to switch back to the normal version, you can select it from the dropdown menu at the bottom left corner of the launcher. You should, however, be sure to back up your worlds, as snapshots can corrupt your world.