How to beat Minecraft

Aakrit Sharma
Ender Dragon and Blaze mob in Minecraft

Minecraft does not compel you to take on bosses and complete a story. However, if you want to earn bragging rights by defeating the Ender Dragon, check out this guide on how to beat Minecraft.

Minecraft’s single-player experience is very different when compared to other action-adventure titles and RPGs. You spawn at a random location with literally nothing and are expected to progress with just two things, mining, and crafting.

Collecting resources and using them to make things is all you do in Minecraft. However, the game is certainly not this simple and over the ten years of release, the developers have added countless features.

If you’re stuck somewhere and don’t know what to do, check out this guide on how to beat Minecraft.

Minecraft characters holding Sword and a Bow

What do you need to do to beat Minecraft?

While there is no objective way to beat Minecraft, the majority of the community believes that you can do so by killing the Ender Dragon. It is the final and arguably the strongest boss in the game and to defeat it, you’ll have to explore many mechanics.

Hence, this guide will primarily revolve around beating the Ender Dragon in Minecraft.

Important items you need to craft to beat Minecraft

You’ll find a lot of trees in the Minecraft Overworld that you can break to collect logs. Put wooden logs into the crafting grid to turn them into planks and place four wooden planks in the 2×2 grid to get a crafting table.

Crafting recipe to make a crafting table in Minecraft

Now, craft these items with your crafting table:

  1. Sword – Primary melee weapon to deal with mobs.
  2. Pickaxe – A handy tool that lets you mine rocks and ores.
  3. Shovel- Allows you to dig dirt, sand, and gravel.
  4. Axe – Helps in chopping wood quickly
  5. Hoe – Helps in preparing farms for items like pumpkins and wheat
  6. Bow– Primary weapon for ranged combat.

You’ll make wooden tools at first. However, by exploring caves, you should find metals like iron, gold, and diamond. The tools in Minecraft can be ranked like this based on their durability and strength:

  • Wood > Stone > Iron > Gold > Diamond > Netherite

Use a furnace to smelt ores and get ingots. Replace wood with ingots in the crafting recipes of the tools mentioned above and you’ll get them in better quality. Also, make sure to craft armor that protects you from mobs and surprise attacks.

A furnace can be crafted by placing eight cobblestone blocks in a crafting grid:

Crafting recipe to make a furnace in Minecraft

To get through the night and have a custom spawn point, you’ll also need a bed, and here’s how to make a bed in Minecraft. Having said that, do not sleep in the Nether or The End as it will kill you instantly.

Now that you’ve crafted all the essentials, it’s time to visit the Nether.

How to go to the Nether in Minecraft

Mine Obsidian with a Diamond Pickaxe to craft a Nether Portal in Minecraft. Obsidian is made when lava and water come in contact. Buckets can help you make Obsidian manually and you’ll need at least ten blocks to create a Nether Portal out of it.

Make a portal that looks like the ones in the image below and activate it with Flint and Steel.

Full and Budget Nether Portals that you need to beat Minecraft

The Nether is the most dangerous realm in Minecraft and you must be prepared for it with strong tools and armor. Do not hit Piglins and take out Ghast mobs as quickly as possible.

Your goal in the Nether is to find a Nether Fortress that has a Blaze spawner. Defeat these enemies to collect at least 15-20 Blaze Rods. Upon doing so, get back to your Overworld.

This is what a Nether Fortress with a Blaze Spawner looks like:

A Nether Fortress in Minecraft

How to reach the End in Minecraft

Defeat Enderman in Minecraft to obtain Ender Pearls. Combine them with Blaze Rods from the Nether to get Eye of the Ender.

Crafting recipe for Eye of Ender in Minecraft

Equip the Eye of Ender and throw it in the sky. It will point toward the direction of the nearest Stronghold. Follow it until the Eye of the Ender stops floating and points toward the ground instead.

Dig right where the Eye of the Ender points and you’ll reach a Stronghold. Explore the area to find an incomplete portal that takes you to The End. This is the final realm in the game and contains the Ender Dragon.

The incomplete portal should have empty spots where you have to put Eyes of Ender until it activates. While searching for a Stronghold manually can be tedious, you can also choose seeds that spawn you right next to one.

You can check out the entrance to a Stronghold and an incomplete End Portal in this image:

Entrance to a Stronghold and the End Portal

How to defeat the Ender Dragon in Minecraft

Defeating the Ender Dragon is the last step toward beating Minecraft. When you enter the End realm, make your way to the center where you’ll find the dragon surrounded by Obsidian Pillars.

Every Obsidian Pillar contains an Ender Crystal that heals the Ender Dragon and you must break them all. Use bows to deal damage when the beast is flying and once you break all the crystals, the dragon will occasionally stop to charge the island. It will be harmless in this state and this is when you should be dealing the majority of the damage.

Ender Dragon in Minecraft

Repeat this strategy until you drain the dragon’s HP and once that happens, you’ve finally beaten Minecraft! The steps mentioned above are straightforward but to be fair, you will require a lot of luck and hard work to reach the end.

The End poem screen in Minecraft after you beat the game

Interestingly enough, beating the Ender Dragon is the goal of Minecraft but following this guide strictly won’t really let you enjoy every in-game mechanic. These include facing the Wither, taming animals like llamas, parrots, and turtles, and enchantments, among several other things.


This was everything you need to know about beating Minecraft. For similar content on the sandbox title, check out our guides on how to make a spyglass, how to make an invisibility potion, and how to make an elevator.

Image Credits: Mojang