How to beat Minecraft: easy-to-follow steps for beginners

You beat Minecraft by killing the Ender Dragon in the End, a dimension you reach through a stronghold portal filled with eyes of ender, each crafted from an ender pearl and blaze powder from the Nether.

The route below runs in order: survive the first nights, gear up, collect blaze rods and ender pearls, find the portal, win the fight, and decide what to do once the credits finish.

How do I beat Minecraft?

Visiting the End and defeating the Ender Dragon completes the game, and the credits roll once the dragon dies. Every step before that exists to get you into the End with the right kit.

1. Start a Survival world, gather wood, craft a crafting table from four planks and get through the first nights with a shelter and a bed.
2. Make a bow and iron gear so you can fight at range and take hits.
3. Repair a ruined portal or build an obsidian Nether portal, light it with flint and steel, and cross into the Nether.
4. Find a Nether fortress and kill blazes until you hold at least six blaze rods.
5. Kill endermen until you hold at least 12 ender pearls.
6. Turn each blaze rod into two blaze powder, then craft one eye of ender from each ender pearl and blaze powder pair.
7. Throw eyes of ender to locate a stronghold, find its portal room and fill every empty frame block with an eye.
8. Step into the portal, shoot the end crystals, then attack the Ender Dragon whenever it lands to perch.

Prepare for the final battle: what to carry into the End

Collect everything below before you look for the stronghold. The dragon is waiting when you arrive in the End, so there is no time to gather supplies once you step through.

Item	How many	Where it comes from	Why you need it
Blaze rods	At least 6	Blazes in Nether fortresses	One rod crafts into two blaze powder
Ender pearls	At least 12	Endermen in the Nether, the End and, rarely, the Overworld	One pearl plus one blaze powder makes an eye of ender
Eyes of ender	12, plus spares	Crafting table, shapeless recipe	The stronghold portal has 12 frame blocks, and throwing eyes leads you to the stronghold
Bow and arrows	One bow, as many arrows as you can make	Bow: three sticks and three string. Arrows: flint and feathers	End crystals explode when hit, and the dragon spends much of the fight in the air
Armor, sword and food	Your best set, plenty of food	Iron or better, cooked food from farms and animals	The dragon charges, breathes flame and fires fireballs
Building blocks	A full stack or two	Anything you can place quickly	Bridging gaps and putting solid cover between you and the dragon, which needs a clear line of sight to fire

Each End portal frame block has a 10% chance to generate with an eye already in it, so 12 eyes is the worst case, not a guarantee you will spend them all.

Learn basic survival skills for your first Minecraft nights

A shelter, a bed and a food supply keep you alive long enough to collect iron and reach the Nether.

1. Punch a tree for logs, turn the logs into planks, and put four planks in a square to make a crafting table.
2. Craft wooden tools, then mine stone for stone tools as soon as you find it.
3. Build a small enclosed shelter before dark and place torches inside it.
4. Craft a bed and sleep in it at night; you cannot sleep while monsters are nearby, so clear the area or close the walls first.
5. Sleep regularly, because phantoms hunt players who have not slept in a few nights.
6. Back away from a creeper as it approaches; it explodes once it gets within three blocks of you.
7. Set up a steady food supply from farms and animals, plus a chicken farm for the feathers that arrows need.

Gear up to fend off dangers before the Nether

1. Mine iron ore, smelt it into ingots in a furnace and craft an iron sword, pickaxe and full armor set.
2. Craft a bow from three sticks and three string.
3. Dig gravel for flint, then make arrows from flint and feathers.
4. Craft flint and steel from one flint and one iron ingot.
5. Carry extra food, a stack of building blocks and a few torches on every trip.
6. Store spare gear in a chest at home so a death far from base does not cost everything.

The bow matters for the rest of the route: ghasts in the Nether shoot explosive fireballs across open ground, and end crystals explode when hit, so both are safer to hit from a distance.

Obtain blaze rods from blazes in a Nether fortress

Blazes spawn in Nether fortresses, so the first job in the Nether is finding one. Fortresses appear in the Nether wastes and in soul sand valleys.

1. Find a ruined portal and replace its damaged blocks, or build a rectangular frame from obsidian; obsidian forms where lava cools rapidly on contact with water.
2. Light the inside of the frame with flint and steel and step into the purple portal.
3. Keep a bow ready for ghasts and carry plenty of food, since the open Nether wastes give little cover.
4. Travel until you find a fortress, then search its corridors for blazes.
5. Throw snowballs to stun a blaze, then close in with a sword before it ignites again; an unstunned blaze combusts up close and fires fireballs at range.
6. Collect each blaze rod it drops and keep killing blazes until you have at least six.

On Bedrock, a blaze drops zero or one blaze rod, only when a player or a pet makes the kill, and the Looting enchantment adds up to one more.

Obtain ender pearls from endermen

Endermen turn hostile when you attack them or look straight at them, then teleport and chase you. They are common in the Nether and the End and rare in the Overworld.

1. Hunt endermen in the Nether wastes or a soul sand valley, where they appear alongside ghasts.
2. Wear your best armor and fight with a sword, since an enderman teleports and closes distance fast.
3. Look at an enderman only when you are ready to fight it, because eye contact alone starts the fight.
4. Pick up each ender pearl it drops; one kill gives zero or one pearl on Bedrock, and Looting adds up to one more.
5. Repeat until you hold at least 12 ender pearls.

Craft eyes of ender and find the stronghold

1. Put a blaze rod in a crafting table to get two blaze powder.
2. Combine one ender pearl and one blaze powder anywhere in the crafting grid to make one eye of ender.
3. Craft 12 eyes of ender, plus a few spares.
4. Throw an eye of ender in the Overworld and follow the direction it travels; throw another whenever you lose the trail.
5. Dig down where the eyes lead until you break into the stronghold, then fight through it to find the portal room.

Every world holds 128 strongholds. On Java Edition each one has an End portal; on Bedrock Edition only some do, so a portal-less stronghold means moving on to the next.

Go to the End dimension through the stronghold portal

1. Find the portal room: 12 End portal frame blocks suspended over a pool of lava.
2. Clear any monsters from the room and block off the lava before you work on the frame.
3. Hold an eye of ender and use it on each empty frame block in turn.
4. When the last frame block takes its eye, the portal fills with black; check your armor, food and arrows.
5. Step into the black portal to travel to the End.

End portal frames cannot be broken or crafted in Survival mode, so the portal you activate stays where it is.

Kill the Ender Dragon

In Bedrock's game data the Ender Dragon has 200 health, is immune to fire and has full knockback resistance, so fire does not hurt it and knockback does not move it. A perched dragon roars for 2 seconds before each flame breath and uses four ground flame attacks before it takes off again.

1. Shoot every end crystal you can see with arrows. A crystal breaks from a single hit and explodes, so never hit one from close range.
2. Stay out of the dragon's path while it circles the center podium; it charges at players and fires fireballs while strafing.
3. Keep solid blocks between you and the dragon when you can, because it fires only at a target in clear view.
4. Wait for the dragon to land and perch.
5. Hit the perched dragon with your sword during its roar, then step away before the flame and stay out of the purple cloud it leaves.
6. Shoot the dragon with arrows while it flies, and repeat the perch cycle until it dies.

Endermen roam the End too. Avoid looking at them during the fight, or a second enemy joins the first.

How to know you have beaten Minecraft

1. Watch the Ender Dragon's death animation play out.
2. Let the credits scroll; they list the people who made the game and mark the end of the main route.
3. Check that you can now travel by portal further out, to the ring of outer End islands.

Next steps after defeating the Ender Dragon

The world keeps running after the credits. The outer End islands open up once the dragon is dead, and End ships there hold some of the most valuable loot in the game.

Goal	Where to find it	What to watch for
Explore the outer End	The ring of islands past the main island: End islands, barrens, midlands and highlands	Endermen everywhere; bring blocks for bridging
Raid an End city	End highlands, among forests of chorus trees	Shulkers hide in purpur walls and fire shots that cause Levitation, then a fall
Find elytra	The treasure room of an End ship in an End city	A shulker guards the room
Fly with elytra	Wear them in the chestplate slot, fall from a height and press jump	Sharp turns cut speed and cliffs hurt
Repair elytra	An anvil with phantom membranes, or a second pair of elytra	Each phantom membrane restores about 25% durability and keeps enchantments

Fix common problems on the way to beating Minecraft

The eye of ender recipe does not work

The recipe needs blaze powder, not a blaze rod.

1. Put the blaze rod in a crafting table to get two blaze powder.
2. Combine one blaze powder with one ender pearl.
3. On Bedrock, the recipe unlocks once you have blaze powder.

A blaze died but dropped no blaze rod

A blaze drops zero or one rod, and only a kill by a player or a pet counts.

1. Land the final hit yourself or let a pet make the kill.
2. Use a sword with Looting to add up to one extra rod per kill.
3. Stay in the fortress and keep fighting until the count reaches six.

The stronghold has no End portal on Bedrock

On Bedrock Edition only some strongholds contain a portal room.

1. Leave the stronghold and throw a fresh eye of ender.
2. Follow it to another stronghold; every world holds 128.
3. Search the new stronghold for the room with the frame over lava.

Endermen keep attacking out of nowhere

Looking straight at an enderman turns it hostile.

1. Keep your view below their heads while you travel.
2. Fight only when you choose to, with armor on.
3. In the End, finish the dragon first and deal with endermen after.

The bed will not let you sleep

You cannot sleep while monsters are nearby.

1. Close every gap in the shelter walls.
2. Light the area around the bed.
3. Kill or wait out the nearby mobs, then try again.

You keep dying in the Nether far from base

Your spawn point is still in the Overworld.

1. Collect crying obsidian from ruined portals, bastion remnant chests or piglin bartering.
2. Craft a respawn anchor to set a spawn point in the Nether.
3. Keep spare gear in the Overworld so a lost inventory does not end the run.

Frequently asked questions about beating Minecraft

What counts as beating Minecraft?

Killing the Ender Dragon in the End counts as beating Minecraft. The credits roll after the fight, but the world keeps running, so you can keep building, exploring the outer End islands and raiding End cities afterward.

How many eyes of ender do you need to beat Minecraft?

You need up to 12 eyes of ender to fill the End portal frame, plus a few spares for throwing while you locate the stronghold. Each frame block has a 10% chance to generate with an eye already in it.

How many blaze rods do you need to beat Minecraft?

Six blaze rods are enough for 12 eyes of ender, because one blaze rod crafts into two blaze powder. Collect a few extra if you also want a brewing stand, which takes one blaze rod and three cobblestone.

How much health does the Ender Dragon have?

In Bedrock Edition the Ender Dragon has 200 health. It is immune to fire and resists knockback completely, so fire and knockback effects are wasted on it; plain damage from a strong sword and arrows does the work.

Can you break an End portal frame in survival?

No. End portal frame blocks cannot be broken or created in Survival mode, so you cannot move the portal or take a frame block home. Creative mode's inventory or commands are the only way to get one.

Can you beat Minecraft in the free trial?

The free trial gives approximately 100 minutes of in-game time in Survival mode, about five in-game days, on both Java and Bedrock. The full route crosses the Overworld, the Nether and the End, so plan on the full game for a complete attempt.

What do you need to make a Nether portal?

You need an obsidian frame and flint and steel to light it. Flint and steel takes one flint, dug from gravel, and one iron ingot. A ruined portal keeps the frame shape and only needs its damaged blocks replaced.