A guide to The Nether and The End in Minecraft

Although you may have dominated the Overworld, there are two perilous dimensions
which 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!

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
await you too. It is recommended that before you try to visit The Nether, you 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 which
can be difficult to locate. A Nether Portal is made of Obsidian, a nice looking solid
block with a purple hue, and you can only mine this stuff 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 illustrious blocks to build yourself a Nether Portal.
Then, when you have your 18 Obsidian blocks, build a 5x4 portal which looks like this:
There you have it! A Nether Portal. But it’s not quite done yet, and you may be
wandering why nothing has happened or is happening when you enter it. To use the
portal, you 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 which 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 which can fly and will shoot fireballs
at you whenever they have a direct line of fire. Your only line of defence against these
commonly-found 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 which should be on every Minecraft
player’s bucket list; it is the ultimate fitting end to what is an awesome game. The End
is home to the Enderdragon, a large mythical beast which is viewed as Minecraft’s
‘boss level’ enemy.
Getting to The End is not easy and is significantly harder than building a Nether Portal.
Firstly, you cannot build an Ender Portal; you must locate a Stronghold. This is very
resource-intensive. Then, when you have found a Stronghold which contains an Ender
Portal, you must navigate your way around the fortress – a maze of rooms and
confusing corridors – to locate the portal, all whilst fighting off any mobs which 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, they travel
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) and 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 towards 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 which 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 3x3 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:

An inactivated End Portal: note the empty black holes in the blocks.

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 from 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 which sit atop of these towers.
These Endermen will not bother you… so long as you don’t look at them directly!

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!