After a decade and a half of ride-based faff, Minecraft is finally introducing the ability for players to craft their own saddles so they can spend more time trotting and less time endlessly rooting through chests – and the feature’s available for testing right now.
Saddles were first introduced to Minecraft all the way back in 2010, providing a means to directly control mounts once equipped. Initially, they could only be acquired through dungeon chests but as the years have gone by and the number of rideable mounts has increased – from horses to pigs to camels and more – so has the number of ways they can be found.
Nowadays, they can be fished out of water, acquired in trades with villagers, or occasionally collected from defeated mobs, but it’s still a bit of a chore – which is where Minecraft’s new testing update comes in. Now, players can simple craft a saddle using three leather and one ingot, meaning an endless horizon of mount-based adventure is finally in easy reach. Better yet, it’s now possible to remove an equipped saddle from a pig without having to murder it first.
In addition to craftable saddles, developer Mojang has also introduced five new ambient music tracks to its testing build, all from composer Amos Roddy and all inspired by features coming in Minecraft’s second major update of 2025 later this year. It’s also added a new jukebox music disc (Tears), which can be obtained by defeating hostile ghasts in the Nether.
All the above is available for testing now via Mojang’s latest Java snapshot and its newest Bedrock beta/preview update (Android currently excluded), and will officially release as part of Minecraft’s second major update of 2025. Happy ghast riding and Minecraft’s striking Vibrant Visuals makeover, if you’re curious, have been in testing since April.
It is, of course, a flagship year for Minecraft, thanks to the unbridled popularity of its Jack-Black-starring, cinema-trashing live-action movie adaptation. And if you fancy replicating the cinema experience in your home by violently hurling popcorn around the living room and wrecking the carpet, the movie just had its digital release earlier this week.