During Minecon this year one if the biggest announcements to emerge was the news of a partnership between Mojang and Twitch, which would result in a forthcoming update that would bring integration with the popular game streaming site to the blocky sandbox game. A few days ago the snapshot update with this very feature was released.

Linking to your Twitch account is done through the settings menu for your account on the Mojang website. From the snapshot it appears that you are able to mess with the streaming settings in-game before you start streaming. Recording stops and starts with the press of a single key (default bound to F6 but you can bind the on/off switch to a key of your choice) and a little red circular light appears in the top-right hand corner to let you know that your stream is live and people will be able to see you. The twitch chat also appears in the Minecraft textbox so you can see what your viewers are talking about and talk back to them (sound integration also works as I and my handful of test viewers found out).

Obviously, being a snapshot there are still a few bugs to iron out. For example there are a few frame rate issues (although as you’re streaming some of that is to be expected) and when you pull up your Esc menu all the in-game audio completely stops, mobs and in-game music, and then resumes where it’d stopped when you click out of the menu. Since none of this is game-breaking though this doesn’t stop me looking forward to the full proper release of this new Minecraft update.