For the first time since launch you'll finally be able to craft saddles in Minecraft

Minecraft horse outside a stables in Minecraft while a player makes a saddle with leather and iron ingot — (Image credit: Mojang Studios)

At long last, the ability to craft saddles for your horses and pigs is finally being added to Minecraft. Gone are the days of traipsing through caves, mineshafts, and villages on the hunt for one specific item. Since its launch in 2010, the only way we've been able to get saddles is by hoping and praying you come across one in a chest somewhere or as a reward from fishing and certain mobs. But finally, we'll be able to make our own, and it's upsettingly easy. I'm genuinely annoyed this hasn't been a feature until now.

Before you get too excited, this update is currently only available in testing. It will be part of the second game drop for the year, which yes, also includes the happy ghast. But with no release date yet there's no saying when it will officially launch, so we could be stuck in testing for a little while yet.

The news of this update was published on the official Minecraft website, and even had the cheek to poke fun at how long players have been asking for this feature. The crafting recipe was also shared, showing that you just need one iron ingot and three leather to handmake your own saddle. Rather than crafting a week's worth of bread, cooking a lifetime supply of pork chops, and noting down your co-ordinates before your head off on the adventure of a lifetime.

That's not all either. This testing update features new music, which is a pretty drastic change since Minecraft's soundtrack is already so iconic. Five new tracks are being added, all of which were carefully created by Amos Roddy. As shared in the news post, there's a track specifically for "cruising across the Overworld on top of a happy ghast" and everything. What more could you possibly ask for?

Another ambient track, called Tears, is a new music disc within the game which can only be dropped by a ghast. Not a happy ghast either, oh no. You have to trek all the way to the nether and face the perils of taking one down if you want to add this record to your collection. But, if you're not quite brave enough or you don't want to risk losing your diamond armour, you can listen to it on Spotify too. That's probably what I'll be doing.

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Kara is an evergreen writer. Having spent four years as a games journalist guiding, reviewing, or generally waffling about the weird and wonderful, she’s more than happy to tell you all about which obscure indie games she’s managed to sink hours into this week. When she’s not raising a dodo army in Ark: Survival Evolved or taking huge losses in Tekken, you’ll find her helplessly trawling the internet for the next best birdwatching game because who wants to step outside and experience the real thing when you can so easily do it from the comfort of your living room. Right?

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