Minecraft Guide to Worlds: Creating, managing, converting and more

Master of your worlds.

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Minecraftdoesn’t just allow players to create and play as many worlds as they want, it actively encourages it. Want a world that tests your skills and cultivates a feeling of achievement? Play survival. Want to unleash your creativity and spend countless hours on a building project? Play creative. Want to take it easy and explore the world? Play on peaceful. Have ten of each. It can be harrowing to manage all these worlds and know what all the options are, though, so we’ve broken it all down in this guide.

The greatest game of all time.

That may seem like an exaggeration to some, but it’s one backed up by nearly every metric. Minecraft continues to dominate the gaming landscape and has sold more copies than any other game in existence. You don’t own it already? Get it here.

How do you set-up new worlds in Minecraft?

Setting up a world is the essential first step to playing Minecraft. There’s a ton of options that can overwhelm new players who don’t understand what everything refers to, but it’s easy to grasp with a little bit of direction.

To set-up a new world in Minecraft, follow these steps:

Of course, there are a lot of options and settings in this menu that can muddy the waters if you’re just trying to play the game. To learn what all of these options are, and which ones are important to you, you’ll want torefer to our dedicated section on it.

How do you manage existing worlds in Minecraft?

Managing worlds you’ve created is even easier than creating them, if you know where to look. Managing your worlds is useful for altering settings you need to change, changing the type of game you’re playing, or even activating cheats. All of these options are explained in the next section, but here we’ll go over how to manage your worlds in the first place.

To manage an existing world in Minecraft, follow these steps:

Of course, there are a lot of options and settings in this menu that can muddy the waters if you’re just trying to change one thing in the game. To learn what all of these options are, and which ones are important to you, you’ll want torefer to our dedicated section on it.

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What are all of the options and settings when managing worlds in Minecraft?

Minecraft is all about freedom, and that means even creating or editing worlds comes with a huge number of options for you to choose from. These range from as little as answering questions like “Does fire spread?” to huge changes like “How about you’re immortal and you have infinite access to all resources and items?” Whatever you want, the power is yours to make that decision.

Here are all of the options you can change when creating a world or managing a world in Minecraft:

Game

The first section you’ll see in the left-hand side navigation menu is going to be the “Game” section. This is where the majority of settings are located. The settings in the “Game” section are:

Some of the options and settings here may change when you’re editing a world, rather than creating it. Here are all the differences:

Multiplayer

The second section available to tinker with your worlds is the “Multiplayer” section. This section is far smaller than the “Game” section but is still handy to have access to. All of these options are the same for creating and editing worlds. Here’s all of the settings you can find here:

Add-Ons

Add-Ons are different packs you can install that change the core of Minecraft, sometimes in subtle ways and sometimes in drastic ones. There are two different kinds of Add-Ons, both of which are available from the Community Marketplace. Those Add-Ons are:

How do you delete worlds in Minecraft?

Sometimes a world exceeds its usefulness, and it’s time to free up a little more space on your device or console. Fortunately, deleting your worlds in Minecraft is almost as easy as creating new ones, so you can clear out old worlds you don’t play anymore whenever you want.

To delete worlds in Minecraft, follow these steps:

How do you convert old worlds in Minecraft?

There may be times in your Minecraft life that you upgrade from an older console like an Xbox 360 to a newer one, or that you simply get a new device and want to make sure to have your oldest worlds brought along with you. Fortunately, Minecraft does their very best to make this as seamless as possible for you, so that you never have to worry about where your worlds are.

When you’re moving between different versions or devices on Xbox or Windows it’s incredibly easy. As long as you have cloud saves enabled on your account (you definitely should,) older worlds should appear in the list of worlds. In these cases, the worlds will be greyed out to signify that the world comes from another version or device. If you tap or click on that greyed out world, Minecraft should sync all the necessary data for you (and possibly convert the world if you’re coming over from a different version.) If the world truly is an “Old” world (meaning it isn’t infinite,) you can change that after it has been converted by editing the world’s settings.

To change a world from “Old” to “Infinite,” follow these steps:

Explore your worlds

Once you’ve mastered the art of managing your worlds, there’s nothing stopping you from having a different adventure for every occasion. And some secrets worlds that your friends aren’t allowed in. Minecraft is about freedom of expression, after all, and that of course includes having as many different worlds as you want.

Do you have multiple worlds in Minecraft? What’s your favorite way to play? Sound off in the comments below!

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.