Minecraft wiki entry for Combat_Update, associated text: Development on the Combat Update began at least a month before the Bountiful Update was released.[4][5] The development period was over twice as long as the development period for 1.8 at 576 days; 2015 became the first year where a major update to Minecraft: Java Edition was not released. Snapshots began the day after 1.8.8 was released. 56 development snapshots were released, from 15w31a to 16w07b, making it the update with the most snapshots so far. The time between releases of 1.8 and 1.9 represent the longest time span between major updates, at 545 days. Fifteen iterations of the launcher were released during this period, from 1.5.2 to 1.6.59. 1.8.9 was also released during this period.