Achievements

Achievements (and Trophies) are small rewards to let you know you’re on the right track in Minecraft. These rewards are available in the PC and console versions of the game. You don’t get any special items for unlocking these, but they’re still fun goals to target, especially when you’re a new player and don’t know what to do first. By the time you figure out how to get most of these, you’ll be an expert at Minecraft!

How to Earn Specific Achievements

Acquire Hardware

Here’s an easy one. Construct a Furnace, interact with the Furnace, and put one piece of Iron Ore into the top slot. Put any type of fuel in the lower slot (Coal is always good). After a short time, the Iron Ore burns away and leaves an Iron Ingot. Pick it up!

Adventuring Time

Visit the Nether and The End, and then travel the Overworld as well to find as many biomes as possible. This is one of the hardest and most time-consuming achievements in the game. If you look up a world with an existing seed, people can give you coordinates for the biomes you still need to find. This can really help, but it’s still a labor of love.

Awarded All Trophies

The PlayStation version of Minecraft gives you this trophy if you finish all the other available Trophies. Read through this section to find out how to get all of them.

Bake Bread

Put three pieces of Wheat onto your Crafting Table, side by side. This gets you a piece of Bread! Pick it up, and enjoy your easy achievement.

Beaconator

Kill a Wither to collect a Nether Star. Use this to craft a Beacon (which requires five Glass Blocks, the Nether Star, and three Obsidian on the bottom). Build your Beacon and then bring it to a wide open space. Create a pyramid there, using blocks of Iron, Gold, or Diamond. You need a four-tier pyramid for this achievement; this means you need 164 blocks of whatever mineral you plan on using.

Benchmarking

After you chop down a block or two of Wood from a local tree, put the blocks of Wood into your crafting window. Fill all four spaces with Wood and make a Crafting Table. Grab it, set it up, and keep on crafting.

Cow Tipper

Find Cows and attack them with a Sword (or whatever you feel like using). Kill the animals and grab any Leather that drops. That’s all you need to do.

Delicious Fish

Craft a Fishing Rod and go to your nearest body of Water. Equip your rod and use it to toss the lure out into the Water. Watch carefully for any ripples, and don’t pull the Rod up until you see the lure dip into the Water. That’s when you use the Rod to grab your Fish.

Once you have something to cook, go back to a Furnace, put the Fish into the upper slot, and wait for it to cook. Grab the cooked Fish when it’s done, and you’re finished.

Diamonds to You

Drop Diamonds in front of a Zombie or, better yet, a player that you trust. If the target picks up your Diamond, you get this achievement. Kill any Zombies involved to get your Diamonds back, or ask nicely to get them back from your friend.

DIAMONDS!

Make an Iron Pickaxe and dig down toward the Overworld’s bedrock (a “Y” value of 15 or lower). Dig through tunnels in all directions until you see a clear, bluish stone embedded in the rock. Cut it out using your Iron Pickaxe and grab the Diamonds. Never use a Wood or Stone Pickaxe for this task; it destroys your precious loot.

Dispense With This

Get a Bow, Cobblestone, and some Redstone, and craft these items into a Dispenser. That’s all that’s needed for this achievement.

Enchanter

Make Paper (from Sugar Cane) and gather Leather from Cows or Horses. Use these to craft a Book.

Then go deep into the mines and gather two Diamonds and four blocks of Obsidian. You need a Diamond Pickaxe to mine the Obsidian, so it’ll take five total Diamonds to complete this if you haven’t already made a Diamond Pickaxe.

Once you have all of these items, craft an Enchanting Table and start saving experience for some cool item enhancements!

Getting an Upgrade

After you’ve made a Wood Pickaxe, start mining Stone. If you don’t see any nearby, dig into the ground and head downward until you find a pocket of Stone. Get three or more pieces of that, and return to your Crafting Table. Use two Sticks and three Cobblestone to make a Stone Pickaxe. Boom! Done.

Getting Wood

Upon starting your game, charge the first tree you see. Hit it with your fists without releasing the Attack button. Before long, the Wood breaks and falls to the ground. Pick it up by walking over it.

Hot Topic

Mine eight pieces of Cobblestone and take them to your Crafting Table. Add them as ingredients and make your Furnace. It’s as simple as that.

Into Fire

Go into the Nether and search for a Nether Fortress. They’re extremely large structures, so you won’t have any doubt when you see one. Climb up the Nether Brick staircases and hunt for the fiery Blazes that fly around each fort’s upper reaches. Kill them with ranged attacks or back around corners to lure them into melee range.

Loot the ground after Blazes die and search for their Blaze Rods. Quite useful items!

Into the Nether

Make a Diamond Pickaxe, fill a Bucket with Water, and search for a pool of Lava (on the surface or down near the bottom of the Overworld). When you find Lava, use the Bucket to pour Water over the Lava. The Water cools the magma and turns it into Obsidian. Make a large, safe place to mine, light it well with Torches, and collect many pieces of Obsidian by using your Diamond Pickaxe (nothing else works).

You can make a Portal to the Nether with 10 pieces of Obsidian. For your first Portal, we’d suggest 14 pieces just because it’s easier and looks nice.

When you have everything you need, find a safe place for your Portal. Make a line of Obsidian four stones long. Stack more Obsidian on the stones at each end until there are two pillars five stones high. Then complete the top of the Portal. It should look like a large zero or a frame with an empty center. Use a fire source, such as Flint and Steel, to light the Portal’s empty center. Now you can jump back and forth between the Overworld and the Nether. The corners are optional, which is why only 10 pieces of Obsidian are required, but the Portal works either way. Consider blocking Portal rooms with a doorway, in case anything decides to wander in from the Nether.

Leader of the Pack

If you’re out in a taiga biome, bring a large supply of Bones with your character. Use these Bones to try to tame any Wolves you meet. Keep doing this to get a large pack and complete your achievement. It’s easier to breed Wolves than to tame them, so feed the Wolves meat to bolster their numbers once you get the achievement out of the way.

Librarian

Six Wooden Planks and three Books combine to make a Bookshelf. You need these to improve your Enchanting Table’s power, so quite a bit of Paper, Leather, and Wood are required to max out your Enchanting Table.

For maximum power, your Enchanting Table needs to have 15 Bookshelves positioned two blocks away from it. For this to happen, you need 45 Books and 90 Wood Planks. In terms of total resources, you need 45 Leather, 135 Sugar Cane, and 90 Wood Planks.

Local Brewery

Fight Blazes in the Nether until you get a Blaze Rod. Bring it home and use it with three pieces of Cobblestone to craft a Brewing Stand. Next employ three Glass Blocks to make Glass Bottles, and use those in the Brewing Stand to begin playing with potions.

Powerful potions are based on rare ingredients, like Nether Wart. Try that and a Water Bottle to make your first interesting potion. Things get much more involved from there, but you’ve already done enough to get credit for Local Brewery!

MOAR Tools

Use basic recipes to craft each of the four common tools. These take eight Sticks and a modest supply of Wood or Cobblestone. It’s easy to gather all of these, and we explain them in the “Let’s Begin with the Basics” chapter.

Monster Hunter

Craft an Axe or Sword and use it to kill a monster the next time night falls.

On a Rail

This achievement takes a long time to complete. You need to make a railway that stretches 500 blocks (console versions) or 1,000 blocks (on the PC). That’s a major time commitment.

We recommend you work as a team to get On a Rail. Everyone can get credit from the same project, because the railway doesn’t get torn up while each person travels along it. This means you can send off one worker, then another, then another, until everyone who participated in the project ends up with the achievement. The more people who participate, the more fun this is!

The good news is that this isn’t very difficult apart from the labor. You need to harvest a massive quantity of Iron. You need smaller amounts of Redstone, Wood, and Gold as well, because Powered Rails are better for this.

Don’t try to go up or down or deal with curves. Make a straight rail that burrows through any mountains that you encounter. Put down 31 regular Rails for every Powered Rail. Drop a Redstone Torch next to the Powered Rails to give them juice.

To be really clever, have one of the participants put a sign down every four Powered Rails. Note the number of tracks that have been deployed so far: 128, 256, etc. This way, you know how much farther you need to go without having to guess.

Overkill

Make a Diamond Sword, an Enchanting Table, and get the best enchantment you can for dealing damage (Bane of Arthropods or Smite). Focus on the correct target for the enchantment you use, so Spiders for Bane or undead for Smite.

When you fight these monsters, jump and swing to try to score critical hits; these blows enhance damage. Bane or Smite at level 3 with a jumping critical and Diamond Sword should be enough for an Overkill!

Overpowered

The process for this is very simple; it’s just a basic crafting recipe. The only trouble is harvesting that much Gold. Don’t do this until you’re very late in the game and can spare such a huge sink for your spare Gold. When you’re ready, turn the Gold Ingots into Gold Blocks (at a cost of nine Gold Ingots per block). Use eight blocks to make your Enchanted Golden Apple.

Repopulation

Find two Cows that are fairly close together and feed both of them Wheat. Happy hearts will appear over their heads to indicate they’re in breeding mode. They’ll sing sweet songs to each other and have a baby Cow. That’s all you need to do. 

Return to Sender

Go to the Nether and take out any melee object, such as a Sword. Find a Ghast and wait for it to notice your character. Stand still so you’re an easy target, and watch as the Ghast shoots a fireball at you. Swing at the last minute before the fireball hits, and try to aim your cursor at the Ghast while you do this. A successful strike sends the fireball back into the Ghast. Score a killing blow to win the fight and get the achievement.

When you try to do this, come to the field with full health, stay away from Zombie Pigmen, and don’t start if you have a bunch of experience saved up. It’s best to do this when you’re low level. That way, it isn’t as big a deal if you die. Also, stay close to your Overworld Portal. Otherwise, you might not get your gear back.

Sniper Duel

Look for Skeletons in the Overworld at night. Hit them with your current weapon to find out how many blows it takes to kill one of them. Once you do this, heal back to full health and find a new Skeleton. Slap it enough times with your weapon to almost kill it, and then back off. Go to very long range and draw your Bow. This usually takes a number of Arrows, so be sure to have a decent supply on hand in case you have trouble hitting the Skeleton. Fire from extremely long range until you get your kill.

To make the battle easier, there is a more involved way to do this. Craft several Fence pieces ahead of time. When you find your Skeleton victim, rush forward and fence it in. Place Torches nearby. Wound the Skeleton, as usual, and then back off over 50 blocks. You now have a stationary target, making the sniping duel easier to win.

Taking Inventory

When you enter the game, use the key/button that’s bound to your inventory. Simple.

The Beginning.

To beat the Wither, use high-end, enchanted Diamond weapons and armor. Prepare yourself with a Potion of Night Vision, and construct Snow Golems in advance. Use all of these to your advantage and kill the Wither. This is quite doable even when you’re alone, but bringing allies for the fight makes the encounter even more epic.

The Beginning?

This is a fairly late-game achievement. You need to spend a huge amount of time hunting Wither Skeletons in the Nether, until you collect three Wither Skeleton Skulls. They’re a rare drop, so you have to fight in Nether Fortresses for a good while. Grab some Soul Sand on the way out of the Nether, and then find a safe tunnel deep inside the Overworld. Build a T-shaped stand of Soul Sand (a block on the bottom with three blocks of Soul Sand stacked horizontally above). Place the Wither Skeleton Skulls on top of the Soul Sand, and spawn the Wither!

The End.

Once you get access to The End, build an assortment of end-game equipment: Diamond Armor, a Diamond Sword with high-end enchantments, plenty of potions, a great Bow, and as many Arrows as you want to carry. Go to The End, break the Ender Crystals, and shoot the Ender Dragon again and again until it dies. Strategies for this are discussed earlier in this chapter.

The End?

Kill as many Blazes and Endermen as possible to collect Blaze Rods and Ender Pearls. Craft a large collection of Eyes of Ender, and use them to find a stronghold in the Overworld. Siege the stronghold and find the End Portal that is dormant within the compound. Use your Eyes of Ender to activate the End Portal. Go through the Portal, into The End when you’re done.

The Lie

Make three Buckets and gather Milk in them. Use Sugar Cane to make two units of Sugar, find Chickens to steal an Egg, and harvest three Wheat. Combine all of these at a Crafting Table to make your first Cake.

Time to Farm

Use two Sticks and two Wooden Planks to craft your first Hoe. Now you can till Dirt or Grass into fertile land for growing crops.

Time to Mine!

Use two Sticks and three Wooden Planks to craft your first Pickaxe.

Time to Strike!

While you’re making other simple items, stay at the Crafting Table and use one Stick and two Wood Planks to make a Sword. It’s not a very good sword, but Stone upgrades aren’t far in your future.

We Need to Go Deeper

Make a Diamond Pick and use Water on Lava to create dark Obsidian blocks. Harvest these with the Diamond Pickaxe (carefully), and then return to your base when you have a large pile of them. Use 10-14 Obsidian to create a large O-shaped portal four blocks wide and five blocks tall. Don’t fill in any of the portal’s interior; leave that space entirely empty. Then use Flint and Steel to light the portal area (i.e., the empty space in the center). It can now take you between the Overworld and the Nether.

When Pigs Fly

Zombies occasionally drop Carrots. Once you get a Carrot, make a garden for it and use Bone Meal to quickly develop a small pile of Carrots. Use these Carrots to lure a Pig back to your base. Gather a Saddle from a Chest in a dungeon or similar area (or trade for it). Then craft a Carrot on a Stick as the finishing touch.

Put the Saddle on your Pig, climb onto it, and use the Carrot on a Stick to guide the Pig toward a medium-sized drop. Don’t get your cute piggy killed, but make sure it falls far enough to take decent damage. Once you run the Pig over the edge, it lands and gives you credit for the achievement.