Why exploring an entire Minecraft world is impossible

Exploration might be a core Minecraft mechanic, but there are limits to what can be accomplished. Exploring the entire world is technically impossible in modern titles, but why is this the case? The answer lies in the fact that contemporary game worlds are considered to be infinitely generating, and there are hard-coded limits to how far a player can go before trouble arises.

As vast as Minecraft worlds are in both Java Edition and Bedrock Edition these days, several obstacles prevent players from exploring every last block of them. While Mojang states that game worlds are infinitely generated, it might be more apt to say they are "virtually" infinite, as there are hardware and software constraints that prevent players from exploring beyond a certain distance.

Note: Some aspects of this article are subjective and reflect the opinions of the writer

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Why it's technically impossible to explore entire Minecraft worlds

Limitations in Java Edition

Exploring entire Minecraft worlds is impossible due to several in-game hurdles (Image via Mojang)

While the prospect of exploring an infinitely generated world certainly sounds nice in theory, several software and hardware obstacles make fully exploring Minecraft worlds an impossible task. In addition to physical in-game barriers, which can hinder movement, additional ones are placed beyond the world border that inhibit players from exploring without manipulating game files.

The world border, situated at the approximate X/Z coordinates of ±29,999,984 by default, is one of the first major obstacles that prevent Minecraft world exploration to its fullest. Most entities cannot move through it, preventing players and mobs from progressing beyond it. However, there are exploits to bypass the world border, and commands can also resize it.

In Minecraft's Survival Mode, entities that move beyond the world border will constantly take damage until they return within its boundaries. This can be avoided in Creative or Spectator Mode or through the use of certain commands. However, another barrier presents itself at X/Z ±30,000,000, where players will encounter the inability to move beyond an invisible wall of sorts.

Fully exploring a Minecraft world is impossible partially due to the immense CPU/RAM requirements, as shown in this spike graph (Image via Mojang)

If players use the Minecraft teleport command or Spectator Mode to move beyond the X/Z ±30,000,000 limit, they'll be forcefully repositioned to a previous spot. Through some gimmicks using minecarts and the Superflat world preset, it's possible to reach roughly X/Z: ±30,000,256 before the minecart is destroyed and players are sent back to X/Z ±30,000,000.

At X/Z: ±30,000,256, Minecraft Java world chunks cease to generate, denoting the "end" of the virtually infinite game world. However, by manipulating the game's source code, players can extend the terrain generation even more to distances as far as ±2,000,000,000 blocks from the world spawn. Be that as it may, pushing beyond this point can result in game performance issues.

Comment byu/Goldragon979 from discussion intheydidthemath

Java's hard limit will be met upon reaching the approximate X/Z coordinates of ±2,147,483,647 on a 32-bit operating system or ±9,223,372,036,854,775,807 on a 64-bit OS. This is the definitive end of a Minecraft Java seed based on their mathematical integer limits. Moving beyond this point or loading new chunks will result in the game crashing due to software limitations.

Although it's possible to fully explore a Minecraft world to the world border, reaching the hard limits is impossible without altering the source code. Reaching the artificial limit of X/Z ±30,000,000 would take years of a player's time if they only used traditional means of transportation like walking, sprinting, mobs, elytra, etc.

Since the game world extends to an outer limit of over nine quintillion blocks when the source code is manipulated, actually reaching this mark would simply take too long or would not be possible without outside manipulation.

Moreover, several in-game mechanics stop operating well before this point, and it wouldn't be uncommon for a player's game to crash due to RAM/CPU constraints before making it far.

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Limitations in Bedrock Edition

Bedrock's "Stripe Lands," a game-breaking distance effect at a certain block distance (Image via Mojang)

Compared to Java, Bedrock Edition has no technical hard-coded boundary. Be that as it may, it's still impossible to fully explore a world in Bedrock due to the X/Z ±30,000,000 barrier still being present. While this obstacle can be circumvented through the use of third-party software and external tools, in-game distance effect glitches begin to warp the game world until it becomes unplayable.

Blocks begin to render incorrectly or behave in unusual ways, terrain generates massive flaws, and some blocks, like flowers, even begin to compress into 2D. At X/Z ±16,777,216, players can encounter the Stripe Lands (not to be confused with Minecraft's old Far Lands), where blocks begin to generate with increasingly large gaps between them.

At roughly X/Z ±2,147,483,647, while chunks can still technically be loaded at this point, doing so will cause Minecraft: Bedrock Edition to crash. This is because it denotes the maximum value of a signed 32-bit integer for C++, the engine that Bedrock is written in. Terrain may technically render beyond this point, but players won't be in the game to reach them due to the crash.

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While completely exploring modern worlds on Java/Bedrock is impossible, it's still possible for players to fully explore older worlds, such as those seen in the Legacy Console Edition, New Nintendo 3DS Edition, and in the Old world type created in older versions of Bedrock. This is because those worlds are generated in a finite size compared to the modern game's "infinite" world generation.

Even in a theoretical situation where a platform's hardware and software limitations didn't exist, fully exploring a world beyond the world border on Java or Bedrock using conventional transportation could take well over a lifetime. Perhaps one day, the game's worlds can become truly limitless, but technology simply hasn't advanced that far yet.