The 10 best things to build in Minecraft survival mode

The sky is the limit.
Screenshot by Gamepur

The sandbox survival builder Minecraft offers a heft of adventuring and exploration for fans, but the meat of the title is found in the building. Whether you’re crafting a monument to your Infinite bow or trying to explore with lava to make a moat for your stronghold, Minecraft will continue to bring a heft of joy well after the Ender Dragon has been defeated. Here are 10 things you should absolutely build in your Minecraft survival game.

Recommended Videos

Related: The best Minecraft shaders

An underwater base

Image via alex-the-gr8 on Reddit

Minecraft 1.13 brought a welcomed overhaul to water life, bringing in a slew of new creatures and fauna into what used to be a pretty dead area. Using blocks to replace the water, you can create an entire underwater base that will be the envy of fish everywhere. Granted, you’re going to likely drown once or twice while getting everything together, but living in the otherworldly realm of aquatic life is an amazing trade-off. For a bonus in PvP servers, they also tend to go unnoticed.

Auto farms

Screenshot via Gamepur

Farming can be a tedious task for adventurers, walking around and chopping crops by hand, picking them up, and replanting as necessary. Auto-farms can do all of this labor for you, although setting them up can be a tricky endeavor with Red Stone and some rudimentary electronics. For wheat farms, cascading water is an easy means of harvesting, and sugar is best harvested with pistons. Don’t neglect animals, however — being able to reach into a chest for raw animal products at a moment’s notice is bliss.

Build a beacon in Minecraft

Screenshot by Gamepur

Beacons are oft-forgotten mechanics — it takes a lot of resources and a fair bit of room, but beacons offer massive areas centered on the construct where all friendly players can receive fantastic buffs. The recent addition of netherite gives yet another step of progression in beacon strength, and six beacons can be stacked onto a singular pyramid for all possible effects in the fewest possible resources. Just make sure that you plan beacons properly so they encapsulate your entire base.

Library with an enchanting station

Screenshot by Gamepur

Enchanting is simply a necessary hurdle for any Minecraft survival player, and that means finding tons of books in villages or crafting your own with leather and paper. However you do it, you’re going to need to spend a fair amount of time gathering the resources. Once everything is in place, you’re then going to need to gather a lot of experience to roll enchants until the best Minecraft enchantments appear. Make sure that you’re spending this time in a meticulously crafted room.

Massive Nether Portal

Image via Kolanii on YouTube

Just because there’s a standard Nether Portal frame doesn’t mean you have to adhere to it. Portals are at a minimum of 4×5 but can be as large as 23×23 since an update in 1.7.2. Build around your portals to create a unique theme, possibly showing the twisting Nether reaching into the overworld and gradually corrupting it. Incorporating your Nether Portal into your base design is ideal, as you’ll be jumping in and out as necessary to farm Blaze Rods and other Nether-specific materials.

Related: Gamer makes playable ‘Minecraft’ in ‘Minecraft’ using only redstone via We Got This Covered

Nether highways

Screenshot by Gamepur

In the Nether, one block is the equivalent of 8 blocks in the overworld. So traveling a distance of ten blocks in the Nether is like traveling 80 blocks outside of the Nether. Using this information, you can use the Nether to travel around your map in Minecraft obscenely fast. Create highways of ice with glass walls, fully lit and encapsulated, and you’ll be able to travel at ludicrously high speeds all over your Minecraft world generation. This takes time to do well, but the server will thank you for it.

A proper wizard tower

Screenshot by Gamepur

Building in Minecraft becomes far more engrossing when you start adding elements and chasing unique themes, and the wizard tower is begging for a creative solution. Whether you want it hovering in the air or in the depths of a dark swamp, exploring with various alchemy constructs along with unique materials. While the sky is quite literally the limit, don’t forget to plan on a means of getting in and out of the tower.

Themed cities

Screenshot by Gamepur

You’ve built everything else, but have you built everything? Some Minecraft survival players stretch well beyond common sense and craft entire cities that they live in with their friends and villagers. Whether it’s a recreation of a city from Lord of the Rings, or a brand new creation entirely, the boundaries of Minecraft mean you can effectively build anything you can imagine, as long as you have the competence and patience for it.

The ultimate Minecraft crafting room

Screenshot by Gamepur

Believe it or not, crafting is half of Minecraft, and you’ll be doing a lot of it. Discover new ways to organize the hundreds of various crafting resources found across all Minecraft biomes, experiment with innovative forge locations, and make sure you can craft everything you’ll ever desire in one centralized location. A properly designed crafting hall will act as a force multiplier and help you speed through some of the more tedious aspects of trying to find specific materials in mid to late-game.

The underground Minecraft base

Image via Disruptive Builds on YouTube

The Minecraft base building is a consistent draw of gameplay, encouraging players to build ever-upward with increasing width and special effects. This might be strange, considering many players will spend a hefty amount of time digging through the layers of stone and ore underground. An underground base, however, doesn’t mean it needs to lack spectacle — from lava-based lighting to cavernous courtyards, and a heft of secret entrances, the sky is no longer the limit — bedrock is. Make sure it’s well-lit so you’re not concerned about hostile mob spawning unless that was your plan all along.


Gamepur is supported by our audience. When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn a small affiliate commission. Learn more
related content
Read Article Today’s Coin Master Free Spins & Daily Coins Links (March 2024)
Coin Master free spins and coins daily working links
Read Article Roblox Block Miner Codes (March 2024)
Read Article Roblox Sakura Stand Codes (March 2024)
Read Article Roblox Dragon Soul Codes (March 2024)
Read Article Roblox Murder Mystery 2 (MM2) codes (March 2024)
Related Content
Read Article Today’s Coin Master Free Spins & Daily Coins Links (March 2024)
Coin Master free spins and coins daily working links
Read Article Roblox Block Miner Codes (March 2024)
Read Article Roblox Sakura Stand Codes (March 2024)
Read Article Roblox Dragon Soul Codes (March 2024)
Read Article Roblox Murder Mystery 2 (MM2) codes (March 2024)
Author
Chris Davenport
Chris Davenport is a freelance writer for Gamepur. He's been writing video game guides for the past five years and has been featured on GameRant.