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In October 2021, Mojang first revealed the Ancient City for Minecraft 1.19, The Wild Update. This was extremely massive news for the game's fans and playerbase. They were already hyped by the new Deep Dark biome, which featured the terrifying Warden. On top of that, the game developers provided a complete structure for players to explore.
As users discovered more about the structure, they learned about its layout, how it looked, and what story it told. Almost every structure in a Minecraft world tells a story of the past and how the world used to be before the player spawned there.
When Ancient City was introduced, and the playerbase saw the giant center statue of the Warden with a hollow area in between, almost everyone immediately thought of a portal and the possibility of a new dimension.
Note: This opinion piece explores speculations and lore discussed within the community. These are not facts, as they have not been officially confirmed by Mojang.
Ancient City could be the gateway to a new Minecraft realm in the future
Exploring the ancient city's speculated lore
When the Ancient City was first introduced, several people explored it. They discovered that several rooms and areas hinted at an ancient civilization that used to live underground. There were chests with extremely valuable loot and hidden ice chambers with food.
There were also wool blocks around the area, hinting at how the people who used to live there before the player's exploration managed to learn the Warden's weakness of not hearing footsteps on wool blocks.
Furthermore, when explorers discovered the secret redstone room underneath the Warden statue at the center, it was evident that whoever built the Ancient City was experimenting with redstone blocks and circuits.
Of course, the structure comes from the Deep Dark Biome. However, it could be the other way around. One could speculate that the new sculk blocks that look to have 'infected' the Overworld came from a different realm altogether. Since the Ancient City is one of the most concentrated areas of sculk formation, this can be a strong possibility.
Since the speculated ancient civilization was clearly experimenting with redstone contraptions, they might have discovered something related to wireless redstone, which is clearly connected to sculk sensors.
Warden statue details and how it could be a portal to a new realm
Apart from the obvious shape of the Warden statue with a hole in the middle, players can also observe the reinforced deepslate blocks that make up the inner lining of the statue. These blocks are not obtainable in survival mode, even though they can be mined. This is somewhat of a mixture of both Nether portal and End portal blocks, i.e., obsidian and end portal frames. These small details about an ancient city and the Warden statue clearly point towards a new realm.
Custom ancient city portals and realms created by modders
Since Minecraft can be modded indefinitely, the community has created a few data packs that allow players to activate the portal and enter a completely custom-made realm, where they can even witness new unique mobs.
Though Mojang has not yet hinted at anything about a new realm connected to an ancient city, chances are they might in the future because the developers have surprised the playerbase with many feature announcements.
