What is the End?
The End is the third and final dimension in Minecraft, a set of floating islands made of pale end stone drifting in an empty black void. It is where the ender dragon lives, and beating the dragon is the closest thing the game has to an ending. Reaching the End is the main goal of survival progression after you gather diamonds and brew potions.
The End has no day, no night, and no weather. The sky stays dark, the islands hang over nothing, and endermen wander everywhere. Fall off the edge of an island and you drop into the void, which kills you instantly and destroys whatever you were carrying.
The dimension comes in two parts. The central island holds the dragon fight. Past it, a ring of outer islands holds end cities, chorus trees, and the elytra, the only pair of wings in the game.
How to reach the End
You get to the End through an end portal, and end portals only generate inside strongholds deep underground. Finding one is a two-step hunt.
First, craft eyes of ender by combining an ender pearl with blaze powder. Throw an eye of ender into the air and it floats toward the nearest stronghold, then drops. Pick it up if it survives the fall (each throw has a chance to break) and keep throwing in the direction it points. When the eyes start floating downward instead of outward, dig straight down carefully and you will hit the stronghold.
Inside, look for the portal room: a lava pool under a frame of 12 blocks with an empty socket pattern on top. Each block in the frame is an end portal frame, and some already hold an eye of ender. Fill every empty socket by right-clicking an eye of ender into it. Once all 12 frames hold an eye, the portal activates and a black starfield fills the frame. Step in.
You cannot mine or move an end portal frame in survival, and you cannot craft one, so the stronghold portal is your only way in. Bring spare eyes of ender, since you may need up to 12 and some break during the search.
The central island and the ender dragon
You arrive standing on a small obsidian platform a short distance from the main island. Build a bridge across, or pillar up and over, to reach the central landmass of end stone.
The ender dragon circles above the island. Tall obsidian pillars ring the center, and most of them have an end crystal sitting on top. These crystals heal the dragon. As long as a crystal has line of sight to the dragon, it pulls the dragon’s health back up fast, so attacking the dragon first is a waste of arrows.
Destroy the end crystals before you fight the dragon. You can shoot them with a bow from the ground, but the tallest pillars have iron bars caging the crystal, so you may have to climb up and break those by hand. Each crystal explodes when destroyed, so do not stand next to one when it goes.
With the crystals gone, focus the dragon. It has 200 health. While it flies, arrows are your best option. When the dragon swoops down to perch on the exit portal in the center, its head drops low enough to hit with a sword, and melee does heavy damage during that window. Watch for its dragon’s breath attack, a purple cloud that lingers on the ground and poisons you, and avoid the void edges while you dodge.
When the dragon dies it bursts into beams of light and drops a huge amount of experience, enough to take you from zero to high enchanting levels in one go. An exit portal opens in the center with a dragon egg perched on top, and a separate end gateway portal appears nearby.
The dragon egg and the exit portal
The dragon egg is a trophy block that appears once, on top of the exit portal, the first time you beat the dragon. Getting it is tricky because punching the egg directly makes it teleport a short distance away instead of breaking.
The reliable way to collect it is to push it with a piston, which pops it into an item you can pick up. Another common method is to place a torch or slab in the block space below it and then break the support so the egg falls and drops as an item. The egg is decorative only, but it is the rarest single block in the game, so most players want it on a pedestal back home.
The exit portal itself sends you back to your spawn point in the Overworld. Stepping into it ends the fight and rolls the credits the first time. You keep everything in your inventory, so loot the area before you leave.
The outer islands and end cities
The end gateway that appears after the fight is your route to the outer End. Throw an ender pearl into the gateway to teleport through it, landing roughly a thousand blocks out where the outer islands begin.
The outer islands are covered in chorus trees, tall purple plants that grow on end stone. Breaking them drops chorus fruit, which teleports you a short random distance when eaten and can be cooked into popped chorus fruit for crafting purpur blocks and end rods.
Scattered across these islands are end cities, tall purple-and-white towers built from purpur blocks and end stone bricks. They are guarded by shulkers, box-shaped mobs that fire homing projectiles which give you the levitation effect and float you upward. Shulkers drop shulker shells, and two shells plus a chest craft a shulker box, a container that keeps its contents when you break it. Shulker boxes are one of the best storage upgrades in the game.
End city loot chests hold diamond gear, enchanted books, and other rare items. The real prize sits in the end ship, a floating vessel docked beside some end cities. Inside the ship you will find an elytra in an item frame.
Elytra and getting home
The elytra is a wearable set of wings that goes in the chest armor slot. With it on, jump off a high point and you glide, and a firework rocket fired while gliding gives you a burst of speed. It changes how you travel across the whole game. The elytra wears down with use, but you can repair it with phantom membranes on an anvil.
To get back to the Overworld from the outer islands, return through an end gateway (it works both directions), make your way to the central island, and step into the exit portal. If you die out there, you respawn at your bed or world spawn and keep none of your dropped items unless you recover them, so glide carefully.
Respawning the dragon
The ender dragon can be brought back for another fight. Place four end crystals, one centered on each of the four outer edges of the exit portal frame. This regenerates the obsidian pillars and their crystals and respawns the dragon. Beating it again drops a smaller amount of experience than the first kill and produces another end gateway, which is how players farm gateways and dragon’s breath.
Dragon’s breath, by the way, is collected by scooping the purple cloud into an empty glass bottle during the fight. It is the ingredient that turns normal potions into lingering potions.
Frequently asked questions
Can you sleep in the End?
No. Beds explode when you try to use them in the End, the same as in the Nether. Set your spawn with a bed in the Overworld before you go.
Do you keep your items after beating the dragon?
Yes. The exit portal sends you home without dropping anything. The credits roll the first time, but you can skip them and keep playing with your full inventory.
How much health does the ender dragon have?
The dragon has 200 health points. The end crystals on the pillars heal it, so destroy them first or the fight drags on forever.
Where do you find the elytra?
The elytra is in the end ship, a floating vessel near some end cities on the outer islands. It hangs in an item frame inside the ship.
How do you get the dragon egg without it teleporting?
Push it with a piston, or break the block beneath it so it falls and drops as an item. Hitting it directly only makes it teleport away.
Can you go back to the End after you leave?
Yes. Reactivate any end portal with eyes of ender, or if your stronghold portal is already lit, just step back through it. The End persists, including any building you did out there.
Worth knowing before you go
Bring a water bucket, a stack of building blocks, and a bow with plenty of arrows before your first trip. The water bucket saves you from fall damage and from enderman swarms, the blocks get you off the arrival platform and across gaps, and the bow handles both the end crystals and the flying dragon. Beat the dragon once and the outer islands open up, and that is where the End stops being a boss fight and becomes the best loot run in the game.