How to build and light beacons in Minecraft

Leave a light on.
Screenshot by DoubleXP

Finding your way home can be quite a task if you ever get lost in Minecraft. Without a compass or map, you will need to rely on a bit of luck or die and respawn at your base. Luckily, you can build a Beacon which will shoot light into the air and direct you where to go. On top of that, you will have some nice bonus status effects depending on your block situation. Here is how to craft and light up a Beacon in Minecraft.

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Related: All Minecraft status effects and how to get them

How to craft a Beacon

To craft the Beacon block in Minecraft, you need first to gather five Glass blocks, three Obsidian, and a Nether Star. Glass can be created by cooking Sand in a Furnace. Obsidian is mined with at least a Diamond Pickaxe when water touches a lava source block. The Nether Star is the item that will be the hardest to get. It can only be dropped by The Wither, a boss mob that can only be called in by placing three Wither Skulls on four pieces of Soul Sand.

When you have the items, the crafting recipe is the three Obsidian along the bottom, the Nether Star in the center slot, and the glass filling all of the other slots.

How to activate and light the Beacon

To light up the Beacon, you need to gather blocks of Iron, Emerald, Gold, Diamond, or Netherite and create a pyramid with them. If you don’t have enough to create blocks of one kind of material you can mix and match. Creating the pyramid between one and four layers big will decide how many status effects you earn from the Beacon. Here is how many blocks you need to create each layer and the boost you get for each:

  • One – 9 blocks, Haste or Speed
  • Two – 34 blocks, Resistance or Jump Boost
  • Three – 83 blocks, Strength
  • Four – 164 blocks, Regeneration
Screenshot by Gamepur

After you have your pyramid, place the Beacon in the middle of the top layer, and the light will shoot into the air. You can interact with the Beacon block to change which status boosts you get and activate them by putting a Netherite, Diamond, Emerald, Gold, or Iron piece in the slot.


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Author
John Hansen
John Hansen is a Full-time Staff Writer for Gamepur as well as a host for the YouTube channel Pixel Street Videos where he co-hosts a weekly gaming podcast and more. His favorite games include Super Mario 64, The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, Breath of the Wild, Left 4 Dead 2, and Overwatch. He covers Overwatch 2 and other FPS titles, Minecraft, Sonic the Hedgehog, Legend of Zelda, and whatever zombie games are placed in front of him.