The ocean that kills you

This is the most unusual mechanic in this mode, and the one that kills the most beginners. You may as well understand it right away.

Swimming away from your raft hurts you

The moment you swim away from your raft, the water starts to hurt you. And the further you go, the harder it hits. The game warns you in red the first time.

It is not a punishment, it is the rule of the mode: your raft is your only solid ground, and the ocean is not made to be crossed.

How far you can go

At raft level 1, you have about 15 blocks of room around it. That room grows with the raft's level and climbs to 35 blocks.

In your Nether and in your End, it is much wider: it starts at 15 blocks and climbs to 100.

Diving, and why it is worth it

Under your raft there is a real seabed: stone, coal, copper, iron, gold, lapis, redstone and diamond, plus corals, caves and a few ruins with chests.

It is a second source of ore, free, and plenty of players ignore it completely.

The dark of the deep

The further down you go, the less you see. A few metres under the surface the screen already darkens, and near the bottom you go flat out blind. No torch changes any of it.

To know where you are, show your coordinates: on computer, the F3 key. On phone and console, the Show Coordinates option in the world settings. The second number is your height. The screen darkens around 50, you are blind below 20.

Only one thing cancels all that: the Abyss Shell. It gives you back your sight down deep, gives you underwater breathing, halves the ocean's damage, and is not lost when you die. It comes out of the Legendary Crate, at a 7% chance.

What to bring before you dive

• Something to breathe with. Three options: a Water Breathing potion, which you brew with a pufferfish you caught, a helmet enchanted with Respiration, the enchantment that makes you last longer underwater, or the Abyss Shell.
• Something to get back up fast: a ladder, or simply a block to place under your feet.
• A landmark, because down there you will see nothing.

The classic mistake

Diving with nothing, ending up in total darkness, panicking, swimming the wrong way, leaving the safe radius and dying drowned and hurt at the same time.

Go straight down, right under your raft, and come back up through the same hole.

Back to: Here, nobody attacks you