After a long time coming and many snapshots, Minecraft 1.8: The Bountiful Update has finally released on the launcher today.

It’s been well over 300 days and 10 months since Mojang began working towards what is possibly the largest update to the popular sandbox game since its full release. The reason for this is that a great many of the core mechanics of the game have been reworked, replaced or just generally improved. This includes some tweaks to world generation (including a whole new way to allow players to generate a world based on what they want) and a new skin system that saw the ‘hat’ layer extended all over the surface of the player avatar and the possibility of finally being able to have limbs that weren’t mirrors of each other.

And while a lot of the updates were meant for the mapmakers or ‘invisible’ to the player, there were many updates to Survival mode as well. This included the addition of new blocks, such as the fall damage-dampening slime block; the three new stone types: andesite, granite and diorite, all naturally occurring and also craftable; red sandstone; prismarine; sea lanterns; wet sponge and more. There are also new mobs added in 1.8, the most prominent being the rabbits who are often tame but can rarely spawn in a ‘killer’ variety.

There are also some building tweaks such as moss stone now being craftable (vine and cobblestone), all wooden fences now join together (but nether brick fences still won’t), fences crafting recipe has changed to be the opposite of crafting a gate (4 planks and 2 sticks) and the different woods now make different doors. Banners are also now available, being crafted much as you would a sign but with wool instead of planks (6 wool and a stick).

There’s a reason it’s called the Bountiful Update and that’s because there’s so much added that it’s impossible to fit all into one article. Check out the blog post linked below for the full list of features and download the 1.8 update from the launcher to play with it yourself.

“Minecraft 1.8 Pre-release 3 – The Bountiful Update” – [x]