NEW BLOCKS:

• Gold Mesh
  • By default, allows any item to pass through.
  • When right clicked while holding an item, only that item is allowed to pass through, allowing you to sort items as they pass through.
  • Also makes for a nice display!
• Painted Doors and Painted Trapdoors
  • Doors and trapdoors can now be dyed in the same range of colours as their plank counterparts.
• Glass Door
  • A fancy modern-looking door made of glass - make sure not to walk into it!
• Brazier
  • A safe way to contain a fire in a metallic frame.
• Rope
  • Crafted from string and slimeballs, these new blocks can be climbed freely and hooked onto using a fishing rod.
• Flowers
  • Added beautiful Orchids, Heather, Bluebells, and Marigolds, all of which provide new sources of harder-to-obtain dyes.
• Trees
  • Added new Thorn Trees, which are exclusive to the Caatinga, and Palm Trees, which appear in rainforests and occasionally on beaches. Also added a very rare chance for absolutely massive trees to appear in rainforests.
• Pumpkin Pie
  • A new food item that can be crafted from pumpkins and placed in the world, taking four bites to eat.
• Slabs and Stairs
  • Added Permafrost Brick Slabs, Cobbled Permafrost Slabs, Sandstone Brick Slabs, Sandstone Stairs, Sandstone Brick Stairs, Cobbled Permafrost Stairs, Permafrost Brick Stairs, and Polished Permafrost.

UPDATED BLOCKS:

• Pressure Plates
  • Can now be placed on the underside of blocks, allowing you to crack your head on the ceiling with purpose and determination.
• Paintings
  • Can now have a fancy trim applied using gold ingots, iron ingots, et cetera.
• Cobblestone and Slate
  • Now have updated textures that tile properly but still keep the same overall look - thanks to @IzzyKart57 for contributing them!
• Levers and Buttons
  • Can now be placed on ceilings and floors

NEW ITEMS:

• Summoning Wand
  • A new creative-only item that provides a more intuitive way to spawn mobs in the world. Can be used in dispensers.

UPDATED ITEMS:

• Bows
  • Bows now show the arrow they’re going to fire.
  • Skeletons now load their bows with arrows when they’re ready to fire.
• Food
  • Radically overhauled how food heals the player. When consuming food now, the player heals over a few seconds, rather than instantly, with the actual rate depending on the type of food.
  • Food now stacks, though the stack sizes are still quite low.
  • When eating one kind of food repeatedly, healing is performed consecutively, but when eating multiple types of food at the same time, healing is performed concurrently. If you want to heal faster, eat a varied diet!

NEW BIOMES:

• Caatinga
  • A new biome inspired by the arid regions of Brazil, the Caatinga provides a smoother transition between grassy and desert biomes.

NEW GAMEMODES:

• Added Hardcore Mode, Adventure Mode and Spectator Mode.

TECHNICAL CHANGES:

• terrain.png is no more! All textures now live in their own files like modern Minecraft.
• Lightmaps are here! The world now uses a dynamically-updated texture for determining light appearance, much like Beta 1.8 and onward. This is set to greyscale light to begin with, but can also use the Beta 1.8 palette or even be disabled entirely.
• Seasons each now have their own biome colourmaps, rather than the vanilla colourmap being distorted programmatically to create seasonal colours; this should give texture pack authors a lot more control over season appearance.

AND MORE:

• Multiple texture packs can now be selected at the same time.
• Added a built-in utility that generates CSV files for wiki usage.
• Vastly improved the Biome Finder utility.
• Added a debug Model Viewer for generating isometric models of items, mobs, blocks, and particles.
• Seasons now last 14 days, rather than 7, doubling the year length to 56 days.
• SRV records are now supported for multiplayer servers.
• Vastly improved the appearance of fancy clouds, especially at sunset.
• Block replacement behaviour is improved
• Added Open Screenshots button to Photo Mode and Model Viewer
• Guidebook is now usable with a controller
• Re-added support for texture packs changing fonts
• Fixed issue where item names could chunkban players
• Mushrooms no longer consume the world
• Camera now behaves properly when falling
• Flowering cherry leaves now decay properly
• Death messages now appear in singleplayer
• Doors no longer open when punched while holding a tool
• Player-placed flowers and grass are no longer affected by seasons
• Increased non-magnified and magnified Motion Sensor range
• Invalid commands now display an error message
• Corrupted worlds now display as corrupted in world selection screen (previously wouldn’t show at all)
• Slate layers now actually use the slate side textures
• Gold tools now have more durability and mine faster
• Fishing Rod and iron tools now have more durability
• Added RGB text color codes
• Chunks with missing/invalid biomes no longer delete the chunk
• Many, many bugfixes
• Removed Herobrine