It’s been a long time coming, but Minecraft‘s ninth update is almost here. TU9 has passed Microsoft certification and is going to drop Friday, April 5. While the update will contain a slew of new features, it is most notable for the long-awaited arrival of the The End, home of the Ender Dragon. The boss fight has been made more difficult for the Xbox 360 Edition of the game, but the adventure to The End still remains the same. If you’re not already familiar with the process, 4J has kindly created a trailer showing how to reach The End step-by-step.

Check out the full list of changes of changes after the jump.

Changes:

– Added ‘The End’, with new layout, and new Enderdragon behavior.

– Added Climbable Vines.

– Added Fire Charge, Wooden Button, Item Frames, Spawn Eggs, Sandstone Stairs, Spruce Stairs, Birch Stairs, Nether Bricks, Spruce Planks, Birch Planks, Nether Brick Slab, Spruce Slab and Birch Slab.

– Added new music for The End and The Nether from C418

– Made buckets and signs stackable.

– Sheep now re-grow their wool after shearing.

– New gravel texture.

– Can now smelt Netherrack into a Nether Brick in a Furnace.

– Blacksmith buildings in Villages now hold chests with loot of the same type as found in Strongholds.

– Crafting recipe change – Sign recipe gives three Signs.

– Crafting recipe change – Half Slab recipes give six Half Slabs.

– Crafting recipe change – Stone Button now requires one block of stone instead of two.

– Added smoother color transitions between biomes.

– Added beaches to terrain generation.

– Fence Gates can now be opened and closed with Redstone.

– Changed Nether Fortress to make Nether Wart rooms more likely.

– Made Nether Wart spawn randomly wherever Soul Sand is generated in the Nether.

– Nether Wart will now grow in the Overworld.

– Made Dispenser dispense mobs from Spawn Eggs, rather than the egg itself.

– Dispenser will dispense lava/water from a Bucket of Lava/Water.

– Dispenser will shoot Fire Charges.

– Trapdoors can be placed on half slabs and stairs

– Allow players to block with a sword when the ‘Can Build And Mine’ option is unchecked by the host.

– Moved six of the twelve music disc quests in the Tutorial World

– Changed the Tutorial world to add climbable Vines, and some of the new items, and removed/reduced the items in the Brewing, Farming and Breeding chests.

– Don’t show the achievements warning when loading a creative map that has already been saved in creative mode.

– Reduced the volume of the Ghast sound effects.

– Increased the distance jukeboxes can be heard from.

– Improved lighting code performance.

– Improved the loading/saving time.

– Changed the display order in the Minecraft Store to show newest DLC first.

– Added How To Play for The End and Farming Animals

– Added HUD size options for both splitscreen and full screen modes.

– Added Reset Nether option to force regeneration of The Nether. This is helpful for older saves that didn’t have a Nether Fortress.

– Added a toggle for Death Messages.

– Added a toggle to hide or display the animated character in the User Interface.

– Allow individual splitscreen users to have their own settings for HUD.

Fixes:

– Fix for a Nether portal crash due to Ghast fireballs

– Fix for Cave Spider size.

– Fixed Experience Orb pickup sound not having pitch variance.

– Fixed a crash when attaching Glowstone to Pistons.

– Fixed a render update problem on the end of world chunks

– Fixed a crash with players throwing Enderpearls and leaving the game.

– Stop the player animation for eating happening in the Change Skin menu

Source: OXM