Minecraft Snapshot 25w41a Adds Mounts and Spears

Mojang launched Minecraft snapshot 25w41a on 9 October 2025, kicking off testing for the Mounts of Mayhem update. This release adds new weapon mechanics, underwater traversal creatures, and natural mounts to Java Edition, alongside visual configuration changes and sound adjustments.

Combat Changes and the New Spear Weapon

The spear provides an alternative combat style with two distinct actions and varying material profiles ranging from Wood to Netherite.

Attack Mechanics and Timing

Spears possess extended maximum range compared to standard weapons, but they also enforce a minimum distance where strikes land no damage if a target stands too close.

• Jab Attack: Activated by quick-pressing the primary action key, delivering low damage with knockback and striking multiple targets without breaking blocks. Attack recovery varies across tiers; Wooden spears possess the quickest reset while Netherite takes the longest.
• Charge Attack: Executed by holding the secondary action button. Damage scales based on weapon material, view pitch, and relative speed between the attacker and defender. The motion cycles across three stages: Engaged (dealing damage, knockback, and dismounting targets above velocity thresholds), Tired (signalled by a vertical, shaking spear delivering damage and knockback without dismounts), and Disengaged (pointed downwards, inflicting damage without knockback or dismount).

Players can also discover or apply Lunge, an enchantment exclusive to spears that propels the user horizontally when using Jab. The furthest travel requires a level horizontal gaze, and each leap inflicts heavy durability loss.

Hostile Mob Spear Usage

Piglins, Zombified Piglins, Zombies, and Husks can now spawn wielding spears. These mobs operate with half the spear reach of players but can trigger damage, knockback, and dismount effects at lower movement velocities. Hostile undead mobs can execute charge attacks directly. Piglins will also accept Golden spears as preferred items.

New Mounts and Ocean Traversal

Snapshot 25w41a expands mount variety across biomes, introducing aquatic entities alongside naturally occurring undead steeds.

Nautilus and Zombie Nautilus

Nautilus is a neutral sea creature spawning across all ocean biomes. When provoked, or when hunting nearby pufferfish, it initiates a forward dash attack. Players can tame and breed them using Pufferfish or Buckets of Pufferfish. Once tamed, equipping a Saddle allows a player to ride the mob, granting the Breath of the Nautilus status effect which pauses oxygen consumption without refilling the bar. Saddled nautilus mobs have a roaming limit of 16 blocks, while unsaddled variants wander within 32 blocks. On land, they take suffocation damage.

Zombie Nautilus mobs spawn underwater carrying Trident-wielding Drowned. They act aggressively only when ridden by an active hostile mob and cannot be bred. Both nautilus types can wear dedicated Nautilus Armor crafted in Copper, Golden, Iron, Diamond, and Netherite variants.

Naturally Spawning Zombie Horses

Zombie horses now spawn naturally in plains and savanna biomes under low light, occasionally ridden by a zombie holding an iron spear. They contribute towards the hostile mob cap and burn in direct sunlight. Taming works identical to standard horses, using Red Mushrooms to heal or lure them. Once tamed, they become persistent, cease despawning, and can equip standard horse armor to gain protection against sunlight damage. They possess 25 health points (12.5 hearts) alongside variable speed and jump attributes.

World Generation and Loot Tables

Spears and mount gear populate structure containers across survival worlds:

• Ocean Ruins carry Stone spears and nautilus armours.
• Shipwrecks and Buried Treasure contain nautilus armours, with Buried Treasure also holding Iron spears.
• Village Weaponsmith chests supply Copper and Iron spears.
• Bastion Remnants and End Cities generate Diamond spears.

Other balance changes adjust defensive stats, increasing Netherite Armor Body slot values from 11 to 19 points.

Technical Settings and Server Host Requirements

For operators running a test server on our Minecraft server list, deploying snapshot 25w41a requires updating client connections alongside server binaries. Later drops continued tweaking these mechanics, such as when Minecraft snapshot 25w43a reworks spears for data pack management, followed by Minecraft snapshot 25w45a timelines and eventual dispenser mounts documented in Minecraft 1.21.11 pre release 4.

The sources do not specify breaking API changes or plugin incompatibilities for this release, though snapshots inherently lack Bukkit or Paper support. Server admins should note that cloud movement is now synchronised globally across all connected clients on a server. Additionally, video configurations replace legacy Fast, Fancy, and Fabulous graphics modes with graphical presets sharing those labels. All world blocks now apply mipmaps when configured in client settings, improving distant visual rendering on foliage and rails while targeting higher baseline frame rates.

What Players Will Notice

Connecting players will observe immediate differences during combat and exploration. Striking with durability-consuming items or gaining Mending repairs no longer triggers an item bobbing animation on the interface. Anvil placement, landing, breaking, and usage audio now play at lowered volume levels. Furthermore, the game adds a dedicated Debug category to key bindings, allowing users to rebind debug overlay keys, spectator shaders, and GUI visibility toggles.