The winter Minecraft game drop has arrived — and with it the first new weapon added to the game in over 15 years. The spear is here and it could very well change how you play Minecraft, especially if you love chaos.
The Mounts of Mayhem game drop also adds several new features and updates related to riding animals in Minecraft. That focus made the spear the perfect fit for this update, and the development team at Mojang Studios already knew it was time for a new weapon.
“We knew initially going into this drop that we wanted a new weapon that would add some more range, and we wanted it to be for mounted combat,” Mojang Senior Product Manager Anna Lundgren told Polygon in a video call. “We tried out a few different ideas, but the spear was the one that both felt great when we tested our prototypes and also looked good for the use case.”
If you’re wondering whether mounted combat means you can joust against your friends on horseback, the answer is yes. In fact, there’s even an attack perfectly suited for it.
“[Jousting on horses is] one of the biggest use cases for the spear, and it’s so much fun,” Lundgren says. “The spear has two attacks: You have the jab attack, where you just stab your enemy. But you also have a charge attack where you lower your spear and get more damage [with] the more speed and velocity you have. So [it’s] perfect for jousting on horses.”
The chaotic fun doesn’t have to stop there, though. If you’re far enough into the game that you’ve been to The End, Lundgren and the rest of the Mojang team have an even more ridiculous idea. “If you are very late in the game, [spears are] perfect for strapping on the elytra and going out and making some real mayhem,” she teases.
In other words: Sky jousting is now real, and it needs to become an Olympic sport immediately.
Another major addition in this new update is the Nautilus. This underwater creature, which is based on the seashells we’ve all been collecting in-game for years, can be tamed and mounted for underwater travel. Not only will it move you through the water faster than swimming, it’ll also preserve your air supply, so there’s no need to surface for fresh air.
The rest of the additions are mostly things that want to kill you, as is the way of Minecraft. Naturally, there’s also a zombie Nautilus popping up in the water, often with a Drowned on its back. If you manage to take care of the Drowned, though, you can tame the zombie Nautilus — or the regular one, for that matter — with a puffer fish.
Much like the spear, the Nautilus is a long time coming for the Minecraft team.
“We’ve been thinking about this problem on and off for quite some while, and again, like with the spear and [adding] more mounts, it felt like the right time to also introduce something for underwater,” Lundgren explains. “For the Nautilus specifically, we had a few different ideas for underwater mounts that we wanted to try out, but the Nautilus concept art looked striking, and we have the connection to the Nautilus shell that was already in the game.”
She also notes that there are actually two different types of zombie Nautilus: regular and coral zombie Nautilus. “[The variants] give some flavor to what you find underwater.”
Other additions include the Parched, desert-exclusive skeletons that can survive in the sun, which means there’s no getting away from them if you find yourself in that biome. Sometimes you’ll see them on camel husks, another new mob. Camel husks are passive zombified camels, with an excellent design that sees their ribs poking out. The same goes for zombie horses, who have a similar rib-popping design and can sometimes be found at night with a spear-carrying zombie on their back.
The last two things on the drop’s list are smaller gameplay updates, including some long-overdue tweaks to riding horses. Now, you can cross bodies of water while mounted on a horse. Additionally, netherite horse armor is now available at the crafting table, so you can give your horse the ultimate protection it deserves.
All told, the final game drop of the year is a pretty good one. The spear alone — and the potential for chaos it brings — would have felt like a considerable upgrade. Throw in the Nautilus, and more things trying to kill you, and Minecraft‘s definitely getting a bit spicier.
The Mounts of Mayhem update is out now for Java and Bedrock editions of Minecraft.