Block of the Week: Water

Water was first added to Minecraft just a few days after the first public release of the game on the 17th May 2009. It's as old as bedrock. Water changed a lot in the early days of the game - at one point it had a chance of evaporating and would drain down from the highest to the lowest location on the map.

In the modern editions of the game, water generates naturally in the overworld during the formation of oceans, lakes, rivers and springs. You'll also find it in villages, desert wells, strongholds and woodland mansions - all over the place, basically. It'll spread into nearby air blocks, washing away anything you place there and dropping it as an item, which is pretty handy for making automatic farms.

You've probably noticed that diving too far underwater can be dangerous. It's dark, there's no air supply, it's tough to mine, and in the ocean there are scary Guardians to contend with. But the rewards of exploring the seas can be great - Ocean Monuments are the only place that you can find prismarine, sea lanterns, and sponges. Get yourself some Respiration, Aqua Affinity and Depth Strider enchants, and see if you can conquer one.

The biggest way that Minecraft water differs from real-world water is that you can create an infinite amount of it - a flagrant violation of the laws of physics. If you put two source blocks on a diagonal from each other, they'll create new source blocks between them, meaning that a 2x2 water source is enough to provide all the water you could ever need!