Minecraft’s upcoming update adds long-missing features, including the ability to craft saddles, and more importantly, unequip them from your pig mounts without turning them into bacon. The features will come as part of the second major update later this year, but you can test them out yourself in Java snapshot or Bedrock beta and preview.
Rather than spending all your time fishing or exploring dungeons in search of a single saddle, you can now craft your own. It only requires three pieces of leather and one iron ingot, and voila — you can ride off into the sunset. Players have been able to craft leather horse armor for a while now, so saddles feel like the logical next step (and one that has been absent for nearly 16 years). It’s much less of a chore to craft your own saddle than find one in the wild, so this is a welcome addition.
The update holds another, underrated feature: you can shear a saddled pig to remove the saddle. No longer will you be forced to kill innocent, cute pigs just because Minecraft’s loot distribution system dislikes you. You can always put the saddle back on the pig afterwards with no harm done.
In addition to the more merciful features, this next update also brings with it five new ambient music tracks, all inspired by features coming in the update. The update also adds the ability to obtain the Tears music disc from hostile ghasts in the Nether, and the update post hints that there’s a specific way you’ll need to slay the ghast in order to get the disc.
There is no set release date, but most projections estimate sometime in June 2025. It’s set to add the above features, as well as other perks like the ability to find dried-out Ghasts and rehydrate them into a pet and potential flying mount.