Combat Update

The Combat Update is the name for Java Edition 1.9, a major update released on February 29, 2016.[1] This update overhauled the combat system, among other additions and changes. The official name for the update, the Combat Update,[2] was discovered on April 1, 2015, by Reddit user 3dDeters (and several others independently) who found a QR code hidden in the snow falling pattern of the April Fools 15w14a snapshot.[3] The development team called the release feature-complete by the end of October 2015, although the update was pushed to 2016 as the developers "want to fix more bugs before release, and keep the game stable over the holidays".[4][5]

Development on the Combat Update began at least a month before the Bountiful Update was released.[6][7] The development period was over twice as long as the development period for 1.8 at 576 days; 2015 became the first year where a major update to Minecraft: Java Edition was not released. Snapshots began the day after 1.8.8 was released. 56 development snapshots were released, from 15w31a to 16w07b, making it the update with the most snapshots so far. The time between releases of 1.8 and 1.9 represent the longest time span between major updates, at 545 days. Fifteen iterations of the launcher were released during this period, from 1.5.2 to 1.6.59. 1.8.9 was also released during this period.

Mojang released the first pre-release on February 17, 2016. The date for this was hinted at by the image in the blog post that announced snapshot 16w06a. The data values of the wool in the image were (1, 7, 0, 2, 2, 0, 1, 6), having a possible (though never confirmed) interpretation of "17-02-2016", a date just one week from 16w06a. The second pre-release was released on February 18th, the third pre-release was released on February 24, and the fourth pre-release was released on February 26.