Minecraft has finally added a pause button after 16 painful years

As a Minecraft veteran of over 14 years, it pains me to say that I’ve died in-game multiple times when the phone rang, or someone knocked at my door.

Until now, there was never a way to pause the game if you were needed elsewhere, leaving the player to either scramble for somewhere safe to AFK, or just hope they return to a still surviving Minecraft hero.

The Minecraft Movie is out in a few short weeks

Usually, I’d return and find that a creeper had wandered along and blown me sky-high - there on my TV was the death screen, with a background of littered items dropped from my corpse.

Thankfully, Mojang has finally added the ability to pause the game to the Bedrock edition of the game, and take a break.

Of course, this isn’t available in multiplayer settings, nor on realms, but it will save solo players a lot of hassle.

In the past, for well over a decade, players having to put down their controller would have to either return to the safety of home, or find a spot to hide.

Not always an easy task if the need to disappear was urgent - you might be off exploring a distant biome.

The only simple way to combat this was to keep a bed on you at all times, placing it down and setting your spawn should the worst happen while you were AFK.

Sophie Austin, a writer for Minecraft, said this on the update, “Have you ever jumped into the menu on Bedrock Edition, only to be jumped by a particularly sneaky creeper?” Yes Sophie, yes I have.

This update arrives alongside new social features for the game which displays statistics, screenshots, and achievements earned while playing.

These appear on the new profile page, and screenshot page, within the game’s menus - all players should now have this update ready to go.