Update: Mojang has pushed the release date for Minecraft 1.9 to Monday, February 29.

Original report: Minecraft’s 1.9 update will launch on Thursday, February 25, Mojang has announced.

The update is also now in pre-release, giving dedicated players the ability to test it ahead of launch and give some feedback to Mojang.

Whilst you’ll have to wait for the complete patch notes, here’s a snippet of what to expect:

Notable changes:

• Bugs fixed
• Increased durability of shields
• Some crystals in the end are protected by cages again
• Added 34.7% more hype for Minecraft 1.9

Bugs fixed:

• [Bug MC-96863] – Marker ArmorStand Should Not Have Passenger Offset
• [Bug MC-97217] – Weird placement of player while riding an entity after swimming with elytra
• [Bug MC-97235] – Resource pack in minecraft world save file not working
• [Bug MC-97251] – Rail Duplication Glitch

If you wish to try the patch pre-release follow these instructions: “To get snapshots (or, in this case, the pre-release), open your launcher and press the “New Profile” button. Call it “snapshots” and check the box saying “Enable experimental development snapshots” and save. To switch to the normal version, you can select it in the dropdown at the bottom left corner of the launcher. Back up your world first or run the game on in a different folder (See the “new profile” dialog).”