How to Play Minecraft: A Beginner's First Three Days

Minecraft doesn’t tell you what to do, so here’s the short version: chop wood, make tools, build a shelter or a bed before the first night, then get food and iron. Once you have those, you’re safe enough to explore, and the game opens up.

This guide is for Survival mode on Normal difficulty, Java or Bedrock. If you want to build without danger first, read about the game modes and start in Creative.

Day one: wood and tools

You have about ten real-time minutes of daylight. Use them like this:

1. Punch a tree. Hold the attack button on a log until it breaks. Get at least 4 logs, ideally more.
2. Make planks, then a crafting table (4 planks), then sticks.
3. Craft a wooden pickaxe and mine about 20 cobblestone from any exposed gray rock.
4. Upgrade to stone tools: pickaxe, axe and sword. Stone tools are nearly twice as durable and much faster.
5. Look for sheep. Three wool and three planks make a bed. Sheep are the most useful animal you’ll see today.

Pick up any food on the way: kill a pig, cow or chicken, or grab apples from oak leaves. Raw meat works, cooked is much better.

Night one: don’t die

When the sun starts to set, stop exploring.

If you have a bed, place it and sleep as soon as it’s allowed. Sleeping skips the night and sets your respawn point there.

If you don’t, dig three blocks into a hillside, seal the entrance behind you, and wait. Make a few torches from sticks and coal (or charcoal from a furnace) and place them inside. Hostile mobs only spawn in complete darkness, so a lit room is a safe room. Spend the night crafting a furnace from 8 cobblestone and cooking your meat.

Days two and three: food, a base, iron

Now you have time to set up properly.

• Food: plant seeds you get from breaking grass near water, and you’ll have wheat for bread in a few days. Two of any farm animal plus their food (wheat for cows and sheep, carrots for pigs, seeds for chickens) gets you a breeding pen. Our page on starting a farm goes further.
• A base: anything with walls, a door and light. Build near trees and water. Fancy can come later.
• Iron: it’s the first real upgrade. Look in caves and cliff faces for stone with tan-orange spots. Smelt the raw iron in your furnace. Iron gets you a pickaxe that can mine diamonds, a bucket, a shield and armor. See how to find iron for the best heights.

A shield is worth making early. It blocks most melee hits and arrows, and it makes creepers far less scary.

Once you’re settled

With iron gear and a steady food supply, you can choose what to chase:

• Diamonds. They’re most common deep down, around Y -59. Our diamond-finding guide has the method.
• Enchanting. An enchanting table needs a book, 2 diamonds and 4 obsidian.
• The Nether. A portal frame needs at least 10 obsidian and a flint and steel. Bring gold armor so piglins leave you alone.
• A village. Villagers trade useful things for emeralds, and a village gives you beds, food and a ready-made base.

The long-term path runs from the Nether to blaze rods, ender pearls, a stronghold and finally the ender dragon. When you’re ready for it, our step-by-step route to beating Minecraft covers each stage, and the survival tips page is full of smaller habits that keep you alive.

Habits that save new players

• Never dig straight down. You can fall into a cave or lava.
• Carry a bed, or know where yours is. Dying far from your respawn point is how people lose everything.
• Hit F3 on Java, or turn on “Show Coordinates” in Bedrock world settings, so you can write down where your base is.
• Don’t eat rotten flesh unless you’re desperate. It can give you Hunger.
• If a creeper starts hissing, back away. You have about 1.5 seconds.