Beginner Tutorial: Surviving Your First Night in Minecraft

Even though Minecraft has been on the market for over 15 years now, the first night is still always scary and especially challenging for new players. The game is primarily focused on survival, as the name of the normal game mode suggests. Surviving in a world that may seem idyllic at first glance, but can be quite harsh at night.

The first night can vary greatly depending on the spawn point and map, which makes it difficult to consider all factors. Nevertheless, we’ll try and give you the best examples of how we survived our first night in Minecraft. The more you play, the easier it gets!

Gathering Your First Resources

When you create a world in Minecraft, it’s generated randomly. You wake up in an unfamiliar world and should first get your bearings. Where exactly am I? What is around me? Get a good overview of your surroundings in the first few seconds to find your way.

After that, you should first look for the most important resources. Wood is at the top of the list and is easily found in most biomes. In our game, we spawned in a spruce forest, but you might have oak, birch, or even jungle around you. Either way, start by chopping down a few trees with your bare hands.

Once you’ve gathered some logs, you should open your inventory. There, one of the first helpful things awaits you. Click on the green book to open the crafting recipes. Then, craft some wooden planks and from them a crafting table. You should also use the wood to create sticks and craft a wooden pickaxe.

Your next priority should be stone. You’ll find this at cliffs or in caves. Don’t go too deep, but use your pickaxe to mine some stone, which will turn into cobblestone in your inventory. If you’re lucky, you might also find black spots on the wall. That’s coal! Mine it too, as we’ll need it later.

Craft Your First Tools!

With some cobblestone, more wood, and coal in your pocket, life gets much easier. Craft more tools from stone, including a new pickaxe, a shovel, and an axe. The recipe book will help you, updating with all newly collected raw materials. You can make torches from sticks and coal to light up dark areas. You should also have a sword ready, as it will be very useful in the next phase!

Go on a Food Hunt

After all that work, your character will start to get hungry, and you might even be unable to run anymore. The drumsticks in your health bar might also look a bit weak. It’s time to get some food! Depending on the biome, it’s important to keep an eye on different food sources. If you’ve already found a village, this aspect is much easier.

For food, you can:

• Kill animals
• Find a village and make bread from hay bales
• Get carrots or potatoes from a village
• Collect wild berry bushes (that’s what we did!)
• Break grass and start a farm
• Catch or fish for fish
• Get apples from oak trees

If you find raw meat or fish, you should cook it in a furnace first. This will keep you satiated longer and prevent the chance of self-poisoning. You can fuel the furnace with coal or burnable materials from wood.

Keep an Eye Out for Sheep

While we’re on the topic of animals, you should also keep an eye out for sheep. They not only give you delicious meat but also valuable wool. Three wool and three wooden planks will give you a bed, allowing you to skip the first night! If you’re lucky enough to have found iron, you can shear sheep with shears. If not, you’ll have to kill them to get one wool each.

Unfortunately, in our game, we weren’t lucky. No sheep were to be seen far and wide … and no other animals either. This makes things a bit harder.

Shelter for the First Night

The day is probably coming to an end now. You’ve experienced a lot on your first day! And hopefully, you’re prepared for the night. Look up to observe the sun’s position. When it gets closer to the horizon, it’s time to find shelter!

There are several ways to survive the night. Build a hut from wood or another material, dig into the ground, or find a cave. In our case, we did the latter. Block off the cave so no monsters can attack you. With a bed, you could now sleep through the night, but we weren’t that lucky and had to wait.

Be Brave and Fight?

You can use the first night to sort your resources and maybe even build some chests if your inventory becomes too full. Or cook some more steaks in the furnace for a cozy night.

But, you can also be a bit braver and venture outside. Many monsters await you there, including skeletons, creepers, spiders – or, in our case, zombies. Beware! Zombies no longer shy away from water and will turn into drowned after a while. Swing your sword from a distance and eat something if your hearts start to deplete.

Tip: Undead monsters like zombies and skeletons burn in daylight. All others disappear. Only spiders remain, but they are harmless during the day and won’t attack you.

Conclusion – The Beginning is Always Tough!

One of the most beautiful experiences in Minecraft is surviving the first night and watching the sunrise in the morning! Congratulations, you’ve successfully survived your first night in Minecraft and are now hopefully ready for a great adventure.

Ready to take your Minecraft experience to the next level? With your own Minecraft server, you can ensure you always play in a controlled environment. Rent your server and start your adventure with friends! It’s much easier to survive the first night together. And it’s just a lot more fun playing with others!