Hell (map theme)

Hell is the early development version of the Nether Waste, used during Minecraft's Indev stage. Map themes were an early version of the biome generator used in Minecraft today. Compared to the "Normal" map theme at that time, "Hell" generated Lava in place of Water. The sky would also appear red, instead of blue.

This map theme made gameplay more challenging, as lighting levels were lower than in the Overworld - this ultimately resulted in more Mobs spawning. Farming also took much longer, as there were very few trees and a low supply of natural materials. This feature was eventually removed in the Infdev stage, and then replaced by the Nether waste in Java Edition v1.0.2.

Most Minecraft players never knew this feature. It looked similar to the Nether Waste (as it was the Nether’s early development stage), but the Nether wasn't added at the time. Another key difference is that “Hell” highly resembles the Overworld, with only an apocalyptic red sky and lava. Because of that, if you got burned, there would be no place to cool off, and the player would eventually burn to their death there.

Due to the many mobs that spawned here, mining trees in Hell was difficult due to interferences from hostile mobs. There was also no stronghold, so the player would no longer progress any further after spawning in this biome. Beds also exploded in Hell, and there was no way to build a hut or a house without mob interference.

Trivia

 * Hell was one of a few types of map themes used in the Indev version of Minecraft.