Surprise Minecraft patch sparks concerns about 1.22, breaks decade-long record

As with all live-service games, Minecraft players are eagerly anticipating every new patch. Minecraft just had a major content drop, ushering in the Copper Age, complete with a golem-sized cleaner to help you tidy up around the house. But in the near future, fans expect update 1.22 to rear its head, offering even more significant changes to the game they know and love. Unfortunately, patch 1.21.10 is setting a precedent that suggests 1.22 is still a way off yet.

Patch 1.21.10 is the first time that a Minecraft update has reached double figures in that last column for 11 years. To understand this, I need to explain a little. The first column is for game-changing updates that will change how the game works on a fundamental level-switching engines or something. The second is so-called minor updates, which still have a pretty big impact on proceedings, and occur about once a year at the current rate.

The final column is patches, which are smaller updates that occur on a more regular basis. These can range from adding whole new mechanics (as with the Copper Age), to fixing a couple of bugs. As one of the best building games around, Minecraft players get very particular about their patches, and the latest one has some of them worried.

The patch itself is fairly straightforward. It fixes a bunch of bugs to do with pistols, wind, and teleportation, as well as a couple of other small issues. However, it's the fact that this is the tenth patch in update 1.21 that has players on edge.

The last version of the game to receive this many patches was 1.7. Many current players won't have even been playing the game back in 2014, and if you want to feel really old, some of them won't have even been born. With patches for 1.21 reaching double figures, it seems unlikely that we'll see version 1.22 this year.

Some players believe that hotfixes like this should be described differently, that this patch should be considered 1.21.9.1 or something, but that's semantics. The next Minecraft update is here, but it's not 1.22, and that's all that matters.

Minecraft patch 1.21.10 is available now. You can read the patch notes here.

If you're looking to get stuck into the game with the latest fixes, make sure to use the best Minecraft seeds and best Minecraft mods to make your playthrough perfect.

What are you building next? Let us know in our community Discord server, where staff and readers think up ridiculous block-based builds as often as we can.