Your first night: monsters, light, shelter and sleep

What comes out at night, and where?

About every 1.5 seconds, the world tries to bring one creature to a random spot 24 to 64 m from each player, never within 24 m of anyone. The place decides who may come (its biome, land or water) and the sky decides when: night creatures are allowed where the daylight is under a quarter. About 3 tries in 10 are made underground, in a cave at least 6 m under the surface, and a cave counts as night at any hour. Zombies roam every land and the caves, alone or in groups of up to three, and ghosts float through the walls. The full list is in the guide to night monsters.

• 24–64 mfrom you: where night creatures appear
• 12monsters at most around you, on Normal
• 3 in 10spawn tries are made underground
• 3 sfor a night walker to burn at sunrise

Does light keep monsters away?

Yes, the light you place. No monster spawns within 14 m of a torch, a lantern, a fireplace or a lit lamp, or 8 m of a candle, and a monster that stays 3 s in that light — a zombie through the door, a ghost through a wall — goes up in smoke, as in sunlight, leaving nothing. Out of reach of your lights, the dark sky decides: a field 30 m from your camp can still fill with monsters. A torch (a voxel of coal, or a charcoal, on a stick makes 4) also lights the ground orange so you see what is coming. If the night or a cave is too dark to read, raise Minimum brightness in Options, tab Light: at 0 % you see almost nothing without a torch.

How do I get through the night?

1. 1

   Be inside before the sun sets

   Dusk comes quickly. Build while the sun is still high: see your first day.

2. 2

   Close yourself in

   Walls two blocks high and a roof, with no gap. Walking monsters cannot cross a solid wall; only the ghosts pass through. A hillside you dig into works as well.

3. 3

   Light the inside

   Torches inside and around the walls: nothing spawns in their light, and what wanders into it fades out. Keep a stack in your item bar.

4. 4

   Wait, work, or sleep

   Craft, smelt or cook inside until the sky turns pale, or sleep if you have a bed (next section). Do not go out in the open without a sword and armor: see armor.

Can I sleep through the night?

• Right-click a bed to lie down; Shift or Space gets you up. You can lie down by day, but you only sleep at night, when the Sun is under the horizon at the bed.
• Lying in a bed at night sets your respawn point beside it, but only for a bed you are allowed to build at.
• When every player on Earth is lying in a bed at night, the screen fades to black and, three seconds later, the clock jumps to the next sunrise. Anyone who gets up cancels it.
• A bed takes wool (shear a sheep), two fabrics (woven at the loom) and three cells of planks: a goal for your second or third day.

What happens at sunrise, and what if I die?

• Night walkers caught under open sky burn away in about 3 seconds and drop nothing. A roof, a tree or a rock above them saves them. Golems, bats, mimics, plant monsters and sea creatures do not burn.
• Caves never see the Sun: what spawned underground stays underground.
• If you die, a screen tells you the cause and how long you survived. Wake up (active after 1 second) puts you back at your respawn point, your bed if you slept in one, with fresh health, food and air.

Updated 2026-10-22