Being a sandbox game, it’s not always clear how to beat Minecraft. Isn’t the game just about mining and crafting things, and building whatever comes to mind? Minecraft does have something most players consider an ending – defeating the Ender Dragon. Let’s take a look at the process, from starting a new world to defeating the Ender Dragon and watching the credits roll.

A New World

When setting out to beat Minecraft, it makes sense to start at the beginning. This guide will use screenshots of the Java version of Minecraft, and instructions for a Minecraft world in survival mode, but this isn’t the only way to beat the game. True to Minecraft’s identity as a sandbox game, there are multiple methods of beating the game. You can still beat Minecraft whether you’re in survival or creative mode, with commands enabled or disabled.

The only exceptions are the difficulty, and the world settings for type and generating structures – if you’re playing on a world where structures are disabled, the End Portal won’t spawn. Some types of superflat worlds can allow end portals to spawn, but others won’t. Setting the world to peaceful difficulty means mobs won’t spawn, which means you won’t be able to kill blazes for blaze rods to craft eyes of Ender. In either of those cases, you will have to build the end portal yourself in creative mode. This guide will use a world of the default type, with structures enabled.

It also assumes at least some familiarity with the basics of playing Minecraft. While a player at any level can beat Minecraft, assuming some familiarity with Minecraft’s basics allows this guide to be more succinct. There are many beginner-friendly guides for Minecraft that can be found, including Mojang’s own official guidebooks. Either way, it’s not a terribly hard game to pick up and learn.

Preparation

Before starting on the journey to beat Minecraft, it’s important to have tools and resources ready. Below is a list of the items and tools you’ll need. A lot of this preparation will be fulfilled just by exploring the overworld, from crafting or obtaining better tools to finding food sources. This process does take time, unless you’re a speed-runner using perfect seeds to try and do this in record time. 

• Buckets – Unless you find a naturally-generated lava source next to a naturally-generated water source, you’ll need a bucket to carry water to the lava for making obsidian.
• Diamond pickaxe – Obsidian can only be mined by diamond or netherite pickaxes.
• Flint and steel – A Nether portal is inactive until the inside of the obsidian frame is lit on fire.
• Armor – Ideally your armor should be diamond-tier if not netherite-tier.
• Melee weapons – Everyone has their preferred melee weapon, whether it’s swords or axes. These should also be as high of a tier as you can get them, ideally either diamond-tier or Netherite-tier.
• Ranged weapons – The Ender Dragon spends a lot of the fight flying around the arena. A ranged weapon, whether it’s a bow or a crossbow, makes it much easier to attack it during those parts of the fight. Of course, unless your bow/crossbow has the Infinity enchantment applied, you’ll also need a lot of arrows.
• Healing items – Food, potions, maybe even both depending on your playstyle preferences.
• (Optional) Carved pumpkin – A carved pumpkin can be worn on your head to prevent Endermen from becoming hostile. This isn’t required, but it can make traveling in the End and the Nether a little bit safer.
• (Optional) Gold armor – Much like carved pumpkins with Endermen, gold armor prevents Piglins from becoming hostile. Only one piece of gold armor is needed, so the rest of your armor can still be whichever tier you’re using.

The Nether

The Nether is the first stop on the path to beat Minecraft. It’s the only dimension where blazes spawn, and the blaze rods you obtain by killing them are a key component of crafting eyes of Ender – more specifically, blaze powder, which is crafted from blaze rods. But before you can start harvesting blaze rods, you need to get to the Nether first. This means you’ll need to make a Nether portal, so you’ll need to mine some obsidian. Obsidian forms when water flows over a lava source block. It has to be water flowing over a lava source block, or it will instead form either stone or cobblestone.

The minimum amount of obsidian to make a functional Nether portal is 10 blocks (2 on the top and bottom, and 3 on the sides), though it’s much more common to see 14 blocks (filling in the corners). After the obsidian frame is created, use the flint and steel to light one of its inner faces (it doesn’t matter which one) on fire. This will activate the portal. Blazes spawn in nether fortresses generate slightly differently between either Java Edition or Bedrock Edition.

In both versions, there’s a grid that determines where either a nether fortress or a bastion can generate. The only difference between Java Edition and Bedrock Edition is the size of the grid, which yields differently-sized areas where the nether fortress has a chance of generating. A nether fortress is made of nether bricks, while a bastion is made of blackstone. These also carry really good loot, so they’re not just useful for the endgame.

The End

It’s finally time to head to the End and take on the Ender Dragon to beat Minecraft! Finding a stronghold is a bit different depending on whether you’re playing Java Edition or Bedrock Edition, as strongholds spawn differently between the two versions. In Java Edition, strongholds can only spawn in 8 rings around the center of the world, and only 128 strongholds can ever generate. Each ring increases the number of strongholds that can generate, with the exception of the outermost ring. By contrast, Bedrock Edition does not limit the number of strongholds that can generate, and does not restrict its strongholds to rings.

An eye of Ender will travel a short distance away from where it was thrown, and either float higher or into the ground. If it floats higher, the stronghold is more than 12 blocks away. The eye of Ender floating into the ground means that the entrance to the stronghold is there and you need to dig towards it. With each throw, the eye of Ender has a 20% chance to break. With any luck, you made enough eyes of Ender that you can find your way to a stronghold while still having enough to complete the end portal. Watch out, though, as some of the stone blocks of the stronghold have silverfish hiding inside them!

The Ender Dragon

Once the end portal is activated, jump inside to find yourself on an obsidian platform in the End, floating at a distance from a structure known as the central end island. The central island is also the boss arena for the Ender Dragon, who flies around the obsidian pillars and will occasionally attack the player. It can also heal using the end crystals on the obsidian pillars of the central island. Destroying the end crystals will damage the Ender Dragon and prevent it from healing, though the crystals explode when they’re destroyed which can send the player falling from the obsidian pillar.

In addition to melee and ranged weapons, the Ender Dragon also takes damage from explosions. This has led to speedrunners defeating the Ender Dragon quickly by making use of the fact that beds explode in the End. While the dragon perches on the inactive exit portal, they place beds on top of the central pillar to deal large bursts of damage to the dragon. Going through the newly-activated exit portal shows what’s known as the End Poem, written by Julian Gough. The poem is followed by the game’s credits. Both of these things show that you’ve successfully beat Minecraft. Once the credits are done, the player spawns back in the overworld.

Final Thoughts

While defeating the Ender Dragon and returning through the portal shows the ending poem and the game’s credits, that’s far from the end of the game. Defeating the Ender Dragon unlocks further areas in the End, and the Ender Dragon isn’t the only boss in the game. There’s the wither, and the warden that was added in 1.19. For players interested in unlocking all of the achievements (including the hidden ones), there’s a wealth of other things to do in the game even after beating the Ender Dragon for the first time.

That’s the beauty of sandbox games like Minecraft – even after accomplishing what could be called the game’s main goal, there’s still plenty left to do. Maybe the next thing you want to do is upgrade every tool to the netherite tier, or build a trading post with villagers of every profession from every region in the game. Or maybe you just want to explore the world and map out as far as you can, and create a room in your base showing off the world map. Regardless, there are plenty of things to do even after you beat Minecraft.

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