It’s a tale as old as time. You’ve played Minecraft for a while, and you’ve done it all. Started new worlds more times than you can count. Punched a tree. Built a base. Mined. Crafted. Braved the Nether. Defeated the Ender Dragon. Got your WINGS. You beat the game! Now what?
Minecraft is a sandbox game, which means the possibilities are endless. Here are ten things you can try when boredom sets in to keep the game feeling fun, interesting, and new!
1. Get Creative
Humans are creatures of habit, we like to do what we know, what’s comfortable. Try stepping outside of that comfort zone. Build something you wouldn’t normally try. A completely underground base. Or a sky base, or one that is underwater. Have a favorite movie or show? Try to replicate one of the iconic buildings or scenes. Is there a block you tend to use most often? I’m looking at you Spruce… Challenge yourself to use a block that is equally as useful, but that you rarely utilize.
2. Give Redstone a Try
Redstone is perfect for anyone who loves all things technical. You don’t even have to know what you’re doing to try it out. Just think of a resource you’d like to have more access to and search it on YouTube with “farm” behind it. “Iron Farm” for example. YouTube is full of useful tutorials for any farm you may want to build. The best part is, just by following the tutorial and creating these farms, you will start to gain a basic understanding of the redstone components. Consider making yourself an industrial area for all your farms, because once you make one, you’re bound to make more.
3. Adventure Time
If you find yourself stuck at your base, not knowing what to do next. Go on an adventure! Try finding and conquering a woodland mansion, an ocean monument, or even an ancient city! Once you’ve conquered one, consider fully taking it over and building something cool inside of it. Transform it to make it your own. Or you could go on a hunt for more rare collection items, such as all of the armor trims, music discs, or pottery sherds. Finding these things will give you hours of exploration!
4. Gotta Collect Them All!
When it launched, Minecraft only had 30 blocks. Lucky for us, it is constantly updating and evolving. With each update comes new experiences, new blocks, and new items. As of version 1.20, there are a whopping 830 placeable blocks in Java and 790 in Bedrock, with more looming just around the corner when 1.21 releases. Give yourself the ultimate challenge and collect them all! Be sure to build an area to display all your hard work, but don’t forget to leave room for expansion!
5. Trim Your World
If you’ve been in the same survival world for quite a while, you likely know the areas directly surrounding spawn and your base pretty well. If your world was created in an older version, that means any explored portion of your map will not update….but what if it could? Try giving your map a trim! You can choose which chunks to update or you can download a software that does it for you, setting it to only update chunks that have been loaded for 5 minutes or less, for example. That way it will update areas you’ve only flown over while exploring. This will leave your map feeling fresh and new, with plenty of nearby areas to explore.
**As always, remember to save a download of your world before attempting something like this! You want to have it to revert back to in case something goes wrong!
6. Start Over
Are you in a world that you’ve been playing in forever? Things could be feeling stagnant because you’ve gotten yourself to a point where things don’t feel challenging anymore. Full netherite gear, beacons, and plenty of farms for access to anything you could need, all contribute to feeling like you are in super EASY mode. But what if you didn’t have these things anymore? What if you started over completely!? This task is not only challenging because you must start again from scratch, but it will also test your resolve because of how tempting it will be to just head home to get what you need. If you want to try this out, you can do so in a few simple steps:
Step One - Choose your goal: When are you allowed to go back home? After you’ve beaten the dragon again? After you’ve gotten full netherite? A beacon? Once you’ve connected your new base to the old? Your goal can be as big or as little as you’d like – but stick to it!
Step Two – Exile: Grab an end chest, the ingredients to build a portal, and take a trip in the nether. Travel thousands of blocks in a direction that you know you haven’t been yet and build yourself a portal to the overworld.
Step Three – Start Over: When you get to the overworld, break the portal, put all your stuff in an end chest (and I mean everything), and then break your chest as well. You should be left with nothing and a brand-new piece of your world to explore!
You’ll have to give yourself a few allowances. For instance, what happens if you die without setting your spawn? Getting back to your new area will be very challenging because of the distance it will likely be from spawn. So, whether you build yourself a path in the nether to find your way, or even leave yourself an end chest with access to an elytra at spawn, find what works best for you!
7. Join a Multiplayer Server
Sometimes, things are just better when you’re enjoying them with friends! Finding a group of like-minded people who love to play Minecraft can be the breath of fresh air you need. Come together to tackle a mega project. Or create a community where you each showcase your individual strengths and then help one another through buying, selling, or trading. It’s amazing how much motivation you can get when others are depending on you and your contribution.
8. Change Your Difficulty
If you are a survival player, you are well-versed in the difficulties of exploring the Minecraft map. BUT, did you know the level of difficulty you’re playing on plays a big role in your interactions and how successful you are? There are 4 main levels of difficulty: Peaceful, Easy, Normal, and Hard. These levels determine many different things, such as how quickly you get hungry, how often mobs spawn, how powerful those mobs are, and even the amount of damage you take from the world (drowning, starving, tripping, etc.). For example, on Easy, very few mobs spawn, and rarely ever do they have armor on them. Creepers cancel their explosion just a short distance away, and starving (letting your hunger bar go completely empty) only affects your sprint ability. On hard, high numbers of armored mobs spawn, you have to get far from a creeper for it to not explode, and starving will slowly take away your actual health until you’ve eaten again.
9. Play a Different Game Mode
When you consider different game modes, it opens a whole new world of possibilities for you. Hardcore (available for Java, Bedrock requires a plugin) is a game mode where the difficulty is permanently set to hard and once you die, you are done in that world! You can enter spectator mode, and that’s it! Ultra Hardcore is the same idea with one major difference, any damage you take can not be replenished. So, that means eating and beacons will not regenerate your health AND you only have one life to live inside your world. There are other ways to play (most of which require a separate download) such as SkyBlock or OneBlock where you are challenged with limited resources and have to use your Minecraft knowledge to craft and create things to continue surviving.
10. Try Out a Mod-Pack
Using Mods after playing pure vanilla Minecraft can make you feel like you’ve stepped into a completely different game. There is a mod for almost anything you can think of! You can add simple things that are more “quality of life” based, like adding waystones to make traveling easier, or veinminer to make mining a cinch! On the flip side, you can add mods that hugely alter the way you play. Create Mod for example is all about powering and building machines. The mechanics of the game change completely! Then there’s a funny thing that can happen after exploring the world of modded Minecraft for a bit, it can actually make you miss vanilla and rejuvenate your love for the original game.
If you have an open mind, the possibilities are truly limitless inside of Minecraft!