2025 was a big year for Minecraftwith two Minecraft Live events and four sizeable content updates. Yes, four — the holidays are here and the end of the year is looming, and Minecraft is enjoying its last 2025 game drop with Mounts of Mayhem (and the last update before Mojang changes how Minecraft version numbers work).
The Mounts of Mayhem update is now rolling out across Minecraft: Bedrock Edition and Minecraft: Java Edition platforms. Keep reading for the full dive into what this update brings, including some insights from my conversation with Mojang Studios‘ Senior Product Manager, Anna Lundgren.
Lots of chaos, lots of mobs
“It’s nice to end the year with some mayhem,” Lundgren told me toward the end of our brief conversation. True to its name, the Mounts of Mayhem update is a bit wilder than the previous three Minecraft game drops. Here’s a breakdown of the new content it brings to the table.
- The spear: For the first time in many years, Mojang Studios has added a new tiered weapon to Minecraft, joining the sword and axe.
- The spear is a melee weapon with extended minimum and maximum reach, and can be crafted with wood, stone, copper, iron, gold, diamond, or netherite.
- The spear has jab and charge attacks, with the former dealing low damage and knockback, and the latter scaling damage and knockback based on material, angle, and velocity.
- The spear is designed with mounted combat in mind, and can be used by players, zombies, husks, and piglins.
- The spear also has the exclusive lunge enchantment, which changes the quick jab to a horizontal lunge, at the cost of durability and hunger.
- The nautilus: Mojang Studios has added a brand-new mount specifically for underwater adventures.
- The nautilus spawns in all ocean biomes, with the incredibly rare coral nautilus sometimes spawning in the warm ocean biome.
- The nautilus is a neutral mob, but can be tamed (and bred) with pufferfish.
- The nautilus can be equipped with a saddle and new nautilus armor (functionally similar to horse armor).
- When riding a nautilus, players get the “Breath of the Nautilus” effect, which halts loss of oxygen when underwater.
- The nautilus also has a dash, similar to the camel (but underwater).
- Undead mounts: Players aren’t the only ones to enjoy mounted combat — three new undead mounts are also being added.
- The zombie horse now spawns naturally in Survival mode with spear-wielding zombie riders, and can wear horse armor for protection from the sun.
- The camel husk can spawn in deserts with spear-wielding husks and parched riders, and is immune to the sun.
- The zombie nautilus can spawn underwater with trident-wielding drowned riders.
- All three undead mobs are hostile when ridden by a hostile mob, but are neutral and can be tamed (but not bred) when the hostile rider is killed.
- The parched: Mojang Studios also added a new hostile mob to Minecraft with the parched.
- The parched is the skeleton archer counterpart to the husk, spawning in deserts with sun immunity.
- The parched fires arrows of weakness, but shoots slower than normal skeletons.
- The parched can also spawn with a husk riding a camel husk.
- Other changes: We’ve covered the big additions, but here are some other miscellaneous updates included in this game drop.
- Horses, donkeys, camels, and other mounts no longer sink in water when riding them.
- You can now upgrade diamond horse armor to netherite horse armor with a smithing table.
- Minecraft: Java Edition now has new graphics presets and options.
“It has been a varied year,” Lundgren said. “We had some very nice, lovable things for builders and explorers with Spring to Life. Chasing Skies gave us the happy ghast to go flying in the sky with your friends. We had a Copper Age with all the new copper things.”
RELATED: Minecraft’s Copper Age update | Minecraft’s Chase the Skies and Vibrant Visuals updates
Now, we’re closing the year with Mounts of Mayhem, which comes with some surprises, like the legendary zombie horse finally making it out of Creative mode.
“Unfortunately, the reason why the zombie horse never made it into Survival outside of using commands… That’s a story that has been lost with time,” Lundgren told me when I asked about it.
We also got more in this update than what we saw during Minecraft Live. “[Camel husks and parched] were part of the plan, but they weren’t ready in development to show at Minecraft Live,” Lundgren said.
Mojang has changed how it approaches updates and announcements, releasing smaller (but more frequent) updates and only showing off features when they’re nearly ready to be released to Minecraft insiders for testing.
Lundgren listed horses being able to swim and the spear being her favorite features from the Mounts of Mayhem update, and teased that 2026 will be another big year for Minecraft.
If you want to see every change and addition included in Mounts of Mayhem, you can now check out the Minecraft: Java Edition 1.21.11 changelog and the Minecraft: Bedrock Edition 1.21.130 changelog.
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