Minecraft gives you a lot of options for base building and crafting, but obsidian is always a favorite. Even when another block might suit your purposes better, there’s something to be said for this ominous purple stone. With blast resistance and high general durability, obsidian structures can resist pretty much anything Mojang has to throw at them. Whether you’re building a cozy wizard cottage, PvP fortress, or anything else, obsidian is the stone for you. Here’s how to make obsidian in Minecraft.
Minecraft Obsidian Guide
(Updated on August 13, 2024 – updated links, images, and explanation)
Before you can build a Nether Portal, you’ll need obsidian. To make obsidian, you need water and lava. From those elemental ingredients, you can create all the obsidian you need, assuming you don’t run out of either resource. Here’s what you need to do:
- Find a pool of lava in the overworld or caves
- Alternatively, bring buckets to a Nether portal and fill them with lava
- Pour water on the ground beside the lava so that it flows into the lava
- Use a diamond or Netherite pickaxe to mine the obsidian
Obsidian only appears when water makes contact with a lava source block, not flowing lava. Water that touches flowing lava turns into cobblestone instead, a far more common (and less useful) material. If you ever find yourself in the middle of a volcano in desperate need of cobblestone, that’s one way to get it, but then you probably have bigger problems. Similarly, using flowing lava on a pool of water will turn it to stone instead.
If you have difficulty finding pools of lava or water, you may also search for ruined portals. They naturally generate in the overworld and the Nether. Ruined portals spawn with regular and crying obsidian that you can mine or use to make a new portal. These portals also spawn other useful blocks, such as blocks of gold and bonus chests. If you also have trouble finding ruined portals, you can mine the large obsidian pillars in the End dimension. Now that you know how to make obsidian in Minecraft, even the Ender dragon will fear you. Probably.
