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."

Whereas this quote is from the PC Gamer Minecraft Halloween Update preview and could highlight the exact numbers:

"... any distance you travel will take you 16 times further in the real world."

The portals are rumored to be made by creating a 2x3 door frame out of obsidian and then lighting the inside of the frame on fire. When you walk through the portal for the first time it will create a portal in it's equivalent Hell area.