Nathan Adams, one of the developers at Mojang, has recently revealed that he has been working on a “lefty” arm for Minecraft 1.9.
Since the start, the Minecraft character has only ever had one visible arm, when in first person mode, the right arm. It seems that in Minecraft 1.9 that is finally about to change, bringing in the potential for an offhand slot.
Adams revealed that while he is working to “introduce a lefty option” it will not mean players will be able to dual wield weapons. Instead, gamers will be able to change their main arm. This also seems to rule out two handed weaponry, at least for the time being, as currently you will only be able to attack from your main arm.
Speaking on the social networking website Twitter, Adams commented “what people have been calling the ‘shield slot’ from my previous screenshots, is actually more accurately thought of as the off-hand slot.” While not ruling out shields Adams’ comment suggests that more items will be able to be held by the second arm, perhaps opening the way for holding torches or leads. To cover himself Adams has put out a disclaimer saying that this feature for Minecraft 1.9 is “not 100% final, that’s why there’s no snapshots and not much info.”
