Death

This article is about the game mechanic. For the soundtrack, see Death (song). For the enchantment in Minecraft Dungeons, see Dungeons:Death Barter.

Death is a game mechanic related to health, which occurs when the health of an entity reaches 0HP.

Occurrence

Death occurs usually as the result of taking enough damage.

Setting the maximum health of an entity to 0HP makes it immediately die.

Executing /kill causes entities to die immediately, including non-mob entities.

In Java Edition, a parrot dies immediately when it is fed a cookie.

Upon the death of a player, a death message describing the cause of death is shown in chat to everyone in that world if the show_death_messages‌^{[JE only]} or showdeathmessages‌^{[BE only]} game rule is set to true. The death of a player's pet also creates a death message if the same game rule is set to true: In Java Edition, this is shown only to its owner; in Bedrock Edition, this is shown to every present player in the world. In Java Edition, the death of a player, villager, or renamed mob is recorded in the game's logs.

When killed, mobs can drop their items and experience at their location.

• In Java Edition, players and mobs drop their experience immediately.
• In Bedrock Edition, players and mobs first play out their animation (see below), then they turn to dust and drop their experience.

Animation

When an entity dies, it performs a death animation, if it has one:

• Players and most mobs fall on their left side to the ground.
• Squid do not have death animations.
• Spiders, cave spiders, endermites, and silverfish flip upside-down.
• The ender dragon flies to the highest dragon-immune block in the (0,0) column, which is typically the top of the exit portal, and then ascends and explodes.

For players and mobs, the death animation lasts 20 game ticks (1 second). After the death animation has completed, the mob or player's body immediately disappears and creates white smoke particles.

In Java Edition, mobs still count toward the mob cap during their death animation.^[1]

In Bedrock Edition, armor stands have a brief death animation when killed with a harming, wither, or poison potion. In Java Edition, summoning an armor stand with no health causes the death animation.^[2]

In Minecraft Education, tripod cameras have a death animation when killed by a potion effect.

Player effects

For players, a "You Died!" screen (or "Game Over!" in Hardcore mode) appears, displaying a death message; in Java Edition, the player's score is also displayed. In Java Edition, the view of the world is tinted red, render distance is reduced to default, the camera-view slowly tilts as if falling over, shudders, and zooms in slightly. In Bedrock Edition, the screen is slightly darkened, a maroon vignette appears and closes around the screen, render distance is set to default, camera switches to third-person view and zooms out for the purpose of allowing the player to see their cause of death. The following options appear on the screen:

• Respawn — Respawn, either in the last bed the player interacted with, at their default spawn point (their first spawn point in the game), their respawn anchor, or at the spawn point set by commands. In Hardcore mode, the player can respawn only in Spectator mode, and cannot continue because cheats are disabled.
• Title Screen — Return to the title screen.

The death screen is not shown upon death if:

• The player holds a totem of undying in the main hand or off-hand and died without falling into the void, in which case the player resurrects upon death. Resurrection does not happen if the player fell into the void or was killed by /kill.
• The game rule immediate_respawn‌^{[JE only]} or doimmediaterespawn‌^{[BE only]} is set to true, in which case the player instantly respawns upon death without the death screen appearing, but still shows death message.

Any items or blocks that were in the player's inventory (except items enchanted with Curse of Vanishing) are dropped from their head, and scattered around the spot where the player died (unless the game rule keep_inventory‌^{[JE only]} or keepinventory‌^{[BE only]} is set to true). Like any dropped item, these drops decay after five minutes while that chunk is loaded.

The player also loses any experience accumulated, reverting the level back to 0 (unless the game rule keep_inventory‌^{[JE only]} or keepinventory‌^{[BE only]} is set to true) and drops experience orbs with a precise total value of player last level × 7 experience points (with a maximum of 100). After reaching level 15, the player always drops only 100 experience points regardless of level.

The player also loses all effects upon respawning, even when the game rule keep_inventory‌^{[JE only]} or keepinventory‌^{[BE only]} is set to true.^[3]

In Java Edition, despite the fact that dead players disappear like all other mobs, it is still possible for the player to see their own hand while in the first-person mode.^[4]

Achievements

Icon		Achievement	In-game description	Actual requirements (if different)	Gamerscore earned	Trophy type (PS)
PS4	Other
		Cheating Death	Use the Totem of Undying to cheat death	Have the totem of undying in your hand when you take fatal damage.	30	Silver

Advancements

Icon	Advancement	In-game description	Actual requirements (if different)
	Adventure	Adventure, exploration and combat	Kill any mob, or be killed by any living entity.
	Postmortal	Use a Totem of Undying to cheat death	Activate a totem of undying by taking fatal damage.

History

Java Edition

Java Edition Classic
0.24_SURVIVAL_TEST							Added health and Survival mode, and therefore death.
							Added the death screen. It displays the player's score and provides a button to generate a new level.
							Enemies now fall over when killed.
0.25 SURVIVAL TEST 3							Added a button to load an existing level to the title screen.
Java Edition Indev
?							The "Score" indicator on the death screen no longer works; it always displays a score of 0.
?							Dead mobs would fall on their left side instead of other random directions.
Java Edition Infdev
20100327							The player now drops their inventory and respawns upon death, rather than having to reload the last save.
							The "Generate new level..." and "Load level.." buttons in the death screen have been replaced with "Respawn" and "Title menu" respectively.
20100413-1951							The player is now removed from the world a few seconds after dying.
							The death screen stops zooming in after a few seconds.
Java Edition
1.0.0			Beta 1.9 Prerelease 2				The death screen in Survival mode received several changes: The "Game over!" text has been changed to "You died!". The "Title menu" button has been renamed to "Title screen". The score indicator works again, now displaying the player's experience.
							Added Hardcore mode, with its own death screen. It only has one button, which deletes the current world.
1.2.1			12w05b				Death screen has a slight delay before buttons become active, to avoid accidentally clicking buttons when killed.
1.3.1			12w18a				When the player dies in Hardcore mode on a server, the "Delete world" button is replaced by "Leave server", which automatically bans the player from the server when clicked.
1.9			15w31a				Death messages are now displayed in the death screen.
			15w37a				A "Spectate World" button has been added to the Hardcore death screen, which puts the player into Spectator mode.
							Removed the text "You cannot respawn in hardcore mode!" from the Hardcore death screen.
1.11			16w39a				Added the totem of undying, which can save the player from death.
1.15			19w35a				The "Delete world"/"Leave server" button on the Hardcore death screen has been changed to "Title screen".
1.16.2			20w30a				Capitalized the first "d" in the "You died!" text on the death screen.
							Capitalized the "o" in the "Game over!" text on the death screen in Hardcore mode.

Bedrock Edition

Pocket Edition Alpha
v0.2.0							Added health and Survival mode, and therefore death.
Bedrock Edition
1.19.10			Preview 1.19.10.21				Death messages are now displayed on the death screen.
1.19.80			Preview 1.19.80.20				You Died screen (Experimental) toggle in Death screen has been updated to match Ore UI, available in preview only.
1.20.30							You Died screen (Experimental) toggle in Death screen is released to the public and no longer in preview only.
							Added the game menu button below the green button.
1.20.80			Preview 1.20.80.23				Death screen is released to the public and no longer in You Died screen (Experimental) toggle.
1.21.100			Preview 1.21.100.22				Enabled engine changes to mob death behavior.

Legacy Console Edition

Issues

Issues relating to "Death" are maintained on the bug tracker. Issues should be reported and viewed there.

Gallery

Screenshots

• 
  A preview example of the revised in Bedrock Edition death screen, depicting Efe dying from a creeper explosion
• 
  The revised in Bedrock Edition death screen, depicting Steve dying from a creeper explosion
• 
  The revised in Minecraft Education death screen
• 
  A generic death screen used on minecraft.net

Development images

Bedrock Edition

• 
  An early look of the death screen^[5]
• 
  An early look of the death screen on respawning^[6]

See also

• Health, the system used to tell the user when they will die.
• Ore UI, the Bedrock Edition and Minecraft Education UI refresh.

References