The latest Minecraft beta has revealed an upcoming feature that some players have been waiting years for: armor trim.
The armor trim system will let you customize almost any armor piece in the game with different colors and patterns for extra visual pizazz. The patterns are determined by smithing templates you can find in chests hidden in specific biomes, while the colors are determined by which material - anything from iron to quartz - you use to apply the trim.
As the Minecraft devs have been teasing on Twitter, there's a massive number of possible customization combinations.
Look at all those possible combinations 👀 pic.twitter.com/ObsJkvaTZDJanuary 24, 2023
I have not seen players this excited for a new feature since the revamped cave generation system was implemented in Minecraft 1.18. Armor trim adds new reasons to explore the world, more cosmetic options, and more reasons to continue collecting resources that would otherwise become useless at later tiers of progression.
"The armor trim system is something I’ve wanted to see for years, it’s honestly surreal finally seeing it in the actual game," Reddit user Realshow says.
"This has to be one of the best things they have added, bar none," CBMX_GAMING says.
Perhaps the biggest praise is that Minecraft can now join the likes of Warframe and Final Fantasy XIV - as Toni303 says, "Finally, the true endgame: Fashion."
The beta snapshot has been out for just a few hours now and players are already cobbling together quick visual guides on where to find the new trims.
Armor trim is being listed as an "experimental feature" for now, which means it may not actually go live in the next patch - more likely 1.20 - depending on what sorts of issues testers have with it.
Alongside armor trim, the new beta snapshot also reveals a revamp to smithing tables, which are turning into "workstations for physical equipment upgrades and modifications." For now, those equipment mods are simply armor trim and the netherite upgrades you used to use smithing tables for, but this opens the possibility of much more notable upgrade types in the future.
Dig into the best Minecraft texture packs if you're looking for more ways to customize your world, or check out our guide to Minecraft cheats if you want more than cosmetic control.
