The Nether



Hell is part of the Minecraft Halloween Update. Not much is known about it; only these things are sure:


 * Used for fast travel (More about this in the section below).


 * Much more dangerous than normal Minecraft landscapes (higher mob spawning rate, special mobs).


 * The only way to get in or out of it is by using portals, players can't just mine straight down and hit hell.


 * Notch has stated that Ghasts will be added as very powerful mobs which only appear in the hell world.

New block types
There are at least 5 new block types in Hell. Only two are currently known:


 * Hell dirt (The Word of Notch)


 * Infinite fire source (Notch's Twitter)

Other block types are visible in the picture released by Notch, visible to the right of this page.

Fast Travel and Portals
Notch hasn't revealed a lot about the portals yet, but he gave us a vague idea of how it works. This quote is taken from the Halloween Update announcement:

"Portal in, move ten meters, portal out, and you're hundreds of meters away."