Minecraft guide: How to build a nether portal quickly and easily
A nether portal is your link between two worlds: the Nether and the Overworld. How do you get there? Read on to find out.
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The road to completing a nether portal inMinecraftis long and potentially arduous. When playing survival mode, it’s not as easy as whipping out obsidian blocks and igniting them. It sometimes requires hours of preparation. Finishing that nether portal means gaining access to the hellishNether, a place filled with hostile mobs, intimidating environments and imposing nether fortresses. It’s also the only place to find a wide variety of unique materials and crafting items, making it a valuable location to have access to.
There are two viable methods of getting to the Nether, so you’re not out of luck yet. Read on to find out how.
Related: Everything we know about ‘the Nether Update’ so far
What do you need to know about nether portals in Minecraft?
Before we get into the two ways one might build a nether portal, let us cover what precisely a nether portal looks like. A nether portal is constructed out of a minimum of 10 and a maximum of 14 blocks of obsidian. When fully built, it should look like a large doorway, with a two-block by three-block gap making up the center.
There are a few more things to keep in mind regarding nether portals and how traveling through them works:
How do you build a nether portal without diamonds in Minecraft?
Contrary to popular belief, it is possible to construct a functional nether portal without harvesting those elusive diamonds. While it’s true that obsidian, the primary ingredient in building a nether portal, cannot be broken or mined by the player with anything but a diamond pickaxe, there are ways around that if you want a little shortcut. Bear in mind, there are some limitations to this method.
To get started, you’ll need:
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Building your nether portal in Minecraft
Once you’ve rounded up all your materials, it’s time to get started. First off, make sure you’re familiar with the basic build of a nether portal by referring to the section above. Once you have that out of the way, follow the steps below, and you’ll have a perfect portal in no time. The secret to building a nether portal without diamonds is relatively simple: obsidian is formed when water hits a lava source block. Just make a mold to make sure the obsidian happens to be created in the exact shape needed for a nether portal.
To build a nether portal without diamonds, do the following:
Keep in mind, there’s one major flaw with this approach. While you theoretically gain access quicker than other players, you areunable to build another nether portal in the Nether.If you get lost and can’t find your way back to the original portal, you’re basically out of luck. Without diamonds, you can’t stockpile obsidian, only make it as you need it. And that doesn’t work in the Nether. While you can find obsidian in the Nether by looting chests, you shouldn’t rely on this. Make sure you mark where your portal is when you arrive.
How do you build a nether portal with diamonds in Minecraft?
If you’ve already found diamonds in Minecraft, and have all the necessary ingredients to craft a diamond pickaxe, building a nether portal is far easier for you. Whether you make your obsidian or find it while exploring, you can simply mine it with your diamond pickaxe and take it with you. Obsidian takes forever to mine, so you’ll be waiting for quite a while, but as long as your pickaxe is made of diamond, it’ll soon join your inventory.
Once you have 10 to 14 blocks of obsidian stockpiled, you can build your nether portal wherever you want by using the portal schematics above. This takes the guesswork out of it, and it means you can keep extra obsidian on hand in case you need to quickly build a portal to escape the Nether. Unless you have a reason for wanting to get to the Nether a little earlier (like potion brewing, or to explore the new biomes as part of ‘the Nether Update,'), it’s probably best to do things like this.
Wrapping up
Now that you know how to build a nether portal, you can move back and forth as much as you want. Once you’ve mastered the Nether itself, nothing will be able to stop you! Except creepers. Those are still a threat. You’re also fully prepared to conquer the Nether when the Nether Update is released.
Related: When will the Nether Update release for Minecraft?
Do you have any other tricks for getting to the Nether? What about unique ways of adding a nether portal to your Minecraft world? Let us know in the comments below!
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Zachary Boddy (They / Them) is a Staff Writer for Windows Central, primarily focused on covering the latest news in tech and gaming, the best Xbox and PC games, and the most interesting Windows and Xbox hardware. They have been gaming and writing for most of their life starting with the original Xbox, and started out as a freelancer for Windows Central and its sister sites in 2019. Now a full-fledged Staff Writer, Zachary has expanded from only writing about all things Minecraft to covering practically everything on which Windows Central is an expert, especially when it comes to Microsoft. You can find Zachary on Twitter@BoddyZachary.
