A guide to The Nether and The End in Minecraft

Although you may have dominated the Overworld, there are two perilous
dimensions that pose an even greater challenge, greater rewards, and
beasts more ferocious than anything you can find in the grassy plains of
Minecraft’s passive Overworld.

Survival in these treacherous realms will be difficult; you’ll need to
be on top of your game and successfully navigate the alien terrains if
you want to make it back to the Overworld. But first, you need to get
there – here’s how!

A guide to The Nether and The End in Minecraft

Getting to The Nether

Infiltrating The Nether is no easy process; it is not something you can do as soon as you start playing the game. It takes time to gather the resources necessary in order to build the portal itself. Plus, you should make sure you are up to the challenges that will await you. Before you try to visit The Nether, make sure to build up an arsenal of weapons and protective gear, because it is a very dangerous place!

Building a Nether Portal may sound simple, but it requires access to resources that can be difficult to locate. A Nether Portal is made of Obsidian, a nice looking solid block with a purple hue that you can mine only with a Diamond Pickaxe. Obsidian can be found far underground in caves and chasms, often where water has met lava, and you need 18 of these blocks to build yourself a Nether Portal.

Once you have gathered your 18 Obsidian blocks, build a  5×4 portal that
looks like this:

There you have it! A Nether Portal.

But it’s not quite done yet, and you might be wondering why nothing happens when you enter it. To use the portal, you’ll need to activate it by equipping a Flint and Steel then right-clicking on the portal. The middle portion should turn purple, which indicates that it is ready to be used to zip you to The Nether.

Be careful, though; don’t go until you are up for the fight that awaits! When you enter The Nether for the first time, make note of where your portal is and don’t lose it – it is your only way back, aside from respawning, and it is easy to get lost in this hellish dimension.

Upon arrival, you will be greeted by an unforgiving world filled with lava pools, fiery dark terrain and lots of scary mobs. You can find many treasures in The Nether, such as Nether Fortresses, but there are plenty of adversaries too. Zombie Pigmen and Ghasts are two of the commonly found monsters here, and they are not pleasant.

Ghasts are the huge, white, ghostly looking mobs that can fly and will shoot fireballs at you whenever they have a direct line of fire. Your only line of defense against these monsters is a good bow and arrow, so make sure you come prepared!

On the other hand, Zombie Pigmen will not bother you unless you attack them first; they are passive until disturbed. If you do attack one, though, get ready to run; Zombie Pigmen attack in numbers and will all gang up on you if you dare pick a fight! Their golden swords are very deadly, and you can quickly become overpowered by them.

Finding The End

Locating and exploring The End is something that should be on every Minecraft player’s bucket list; it is the ultimate fitting end an awesome game. The End is home to the Enderdragon, a large mythical beast that is viewed as Minecraft’s “boss level” enemy.

Getting to The End is not easy; in fact, it is significantly harder than building a Nether Portal. First, you cannot build an Ender Portal; you must locate a Stronghold. This is very resource intensive. Then, when you have found a Stronghold that contains an Ender Portal, you must navigate your way around the fortress – a maze of rooms and confusing corridors – to locate the portal, all while fighting off any mobs that come your way.

Although this is no easy feat, The End is an amazing realm, and if you are up for what can be a very long and tiring adventure, then you should go for it!

Locating a Stronghold

The Eye of Ender is used to locate a Stronghold. When thrown in the air, it travels upwards and then horizontally in the direction of the nearest Stronghold. Then, it will either drop to the floor (80% chance) or break (20% chance). You also need Eyes of Ender to activate the End Portal (12 in total), so make plenty of them before you start your adventure!

To make an Eye of Ender, you need Ender Pearls and Blaze Powder. You can get the pearls by killing Endermen, and the powder from locating and killing Blaze monsters in the end.

Keep throwing your Eye of Ender until it no longer travels horizontally, and instead travels downwards toward the ground. When it does this, you have located a Stronghold, which will be far under the ground on which you stand – you will need to dig far, far down in order to enter the Stronghold and begin exploring.

Strongholds can be made up of many rooms that may or may not be connected. If you keep finding dead ends, just keep going and digging around the surrounding area to locate more rooms. It can take a while to find the End Portal room, but you will know it when you’re there – look out for stone brick like this:

This is what a Stronghold looks like and, as we have already mentioned, it is a fortress of twists and turns, rooms which lead to nowhere and are full of surprises. It can take a while to find an End Portal, so be patient and begin exploring – there is a lot for you to find here.

An End Portal is a 3×3 square with its corners missing, made of a white block with a green border. It always sits atop some stairs with some lava underneath it, and it looks like this:

Like a Nether Portal, the End Portal is not active when you find it. To activate it, equip your Eyes of Ender and right-click each individual white block; this will place an Ender Eye in them and when they are all filled the portal will activate. Jump on in if you’re ready to be transported to The End and face the Enderdragon!

When you reach The End, you will be greeted by a big creamy-colored land mass, on top of which sit lots of towers made of Obsidian. Guarded by Endermen, these towers are what gives the Enderdragon its power and, in order to defeat the Enderdragon, you must first destroy the beacons that sit atop of these towers.

The Endermen are harmless when passive; just don’t look at them – as I am sure you are already aware – and you won’t be harmed. A bow and arrow is the weapon of choice for both taking out the crystals and the Enderdragon itself.

It is possible to take down the Enderdragon without destroying the beacons, but you will need a very strong bow, because the Enderdragon can regenerate health from active beacons. Eventually, this mythical beast will succumb to your attack and dazzle you with a spectacular light show.

Make sure you collect all the experience points that this monolithic adversary drops! Just below where the dragon falls, his egg will spawn atop a podium – be sure that you pick it up and display it proudly back in the Overworld!

But wait, what’s this? Another portal? Yes, that’s right! A new portal will spawn where the Enderdragon died and, upon entering, you will see the game’s ending credits and be returned safely to the Overworld… much better than having to fight your way back through the Stronghold and walk home!