If you have played Hardcore mode many times and are comfortable with it, and want an even bigger challenge, try Ultra Hardcore Mode. Ultra Hardcore mode is like Hardcore, but to add to the challenges of hardcore, you don't naturally regenerate health. This difficulty is extreme, so it is advised to try hardcore mode first to gain extensive experience, and move on to this difficulty when you think you are ready.

All the rules of regular Hardcore still apply, so read them first.

Creating a UHC World

Java Edition 1.16 or Above

Click create new world and set gamemode to Hardcore. Next, click game rules, and select natural regeneration to make it false. Once you have done that, click create world. Now you have successfully created your own Ultra Hardcore world.

Other

Create a Hardcore world. Once the world has finished generating, open the pause menu, click the open to LAN option, and turn on the allow Cheats option, before clicking the "Start LAN World" button. Once this is done, exit the menu and enter the following command into the chatbox: /gamerule naturalRegeneration false. Once you have completed these steps, save and exit to the title screen, before returning to the game.

Notes and tips

Ultra Hardcore Mode, like mentioned earlier, is very difficult to survive when playing, and if you die, your map will only be available for spectating. Therefore, it's important to know how to avoid dying. Here are some tips:

• First of all, as stated before, there is no natural health regeneration. So, remember to avoid even the most pathetic ways of getting damaged, such as being spat on by a llama or touching cactus.
• You'll have to be really quick with getting resources, because no regeneration makes taking damage much more dangerous.
• Find ingredients to make a golden apple, a potion of Healing, suspicious stew with regeneration, or a potion of Regeneration as quick as possible, as these are some of the few ways to regenerate health in UHC.
• Although hard and labor-intensive to acquire, a beacon can make your life significantly easier, along with reducing the amounts of potions and apples you may consume.
• Remember hunger is the most crucial part of survival. As with a normal survival, get food quickly. Hunger is a pitiful excuse for taking damage.
• Keep a water bucket on your hotbar at all times. Falling and fire damage can be reduced by using a water bucket.

Tips that apply to PvP (Most of the tips below apply in general)

• A great way to check out if there are any players in the vicinity is to trap yourself in a small capsule. The lack of lighting causes everything to be dark except for name tags, which are now more visible than regularly.
• Gold and apples are going to be your top priorities. Apples can be found on the surface and dropped from oak leaves, like saplings. In many cases you'll have more apples than gold.
• While waiting for your items to smelt, consider farming gravel to gain enough flint to craft arrows.
• With the addition of suspicious stew to Minecraft, regeneration is much easier to get. Considering how mushroom biomes remain one of the safest environments, and the ease of growing flowers, suspicious stew may serve as an excellent early game healing item, and a much cheaper alternative to potions, albeit not nearly as effective.
• Consider checking out YouTubers or Twitch streamers to see their UHC strategies.
• The game usually goes up to 1-2 hours, so make sure you don't starve in real life, keep some water and a snack beside you.
• Check the rules before going into a game of UHC. Some may have player head apple and strength/regen disabled, so you might just want to read it before joining.
• Strength is extremely beneficial (if not disabled), being able to deal an extra 3 damage in Java Edition, and more damage in Bedrock Edition on only the first tier. Speed is another potion that is handy, being able to go 20% or 40% faster.
• If you do need to go AFK for any reason, leave the world and rejoin the world when you get back. You don't want to come back and realize you got killed.

Beginning

There are a lot of options of what you can do play singleplayer UHC, but if you want to survive, you generally want to either not take much damage, or get a lot of materials to heal with.

The Overworld

When you start, get only 3 logs. Make a crafting table and wooden pickaxe. Go to the nearest stone and mine 3 blocks. Make a stone pickaxe, then mine around 10 blocks to make sword , shovel and axe. Mine 10 more stone and make a hoe and furnace. As you move, kill passive mobs and try to get 12 pieces of meat and 3 wool. Get 5 more logs and make a chest and bed. If you find coal or iron, mine it. Try to get at least one wheat seed, and till the ground next to water and plant the seed. If you have wood, make a stack of torches.

When night falls, it is safer to go mining unless you have already built a house with a bed. Try to get at least a stack of iron and a stack of coal. Get some gold for a golden apple and a clock. Get some redstone and lapis lazuli. If you get diamonds, make a diamond pickaxe and mine 14 obsidian. Craft a shield, a bucket, an iron sword and pickaxe, iron armor, an anvil, and an enchanting table if you have the resources. If you have more iron, make a second bucket and a pair of shears.

Once you finish mining, you can go up and gather more logs and expand your farm. Once you have gathered materials, you should make a bigger base. The base should be able to fit all your chests, furnaces, crafting tables, and everything you need. Build an animal pen and expand your wheat farm. Get oxeye daisies, both types of mushrooms, and a bowl to make suspicious stew for healing. Once you have enough gold, make a golden apple, keep it in your hotbar, and never remove it. It will save your life at some point.

After you've gathered basic materials, you should probably either continue caving or go to the Nether.

Caving

Caving in UHC mode is what you make it. Generally, people either try to go super fast or super slow. The goal of going super fast is to beat mob spawns through the caves and gain materials more efficiently. You can light behind you with torches if you want, especially if you plan to go back out the way you entered. If you run through placing torches you might want to not even mine ores to get through faster. The other approach is to go through caves very slowly. A lot of people will recommend this, although, for competitive or time-based environments, it's generally more efficient to just run through. When caving slowly, always block off mobs and attack their feet.

You can also avoid caves and just go strip-mining for ores and obtain a bow and arrows from a fletcher villager.

The Nether

Read the Nether survival guide first. As usual, you need to avoid all types of damage. However, you must be even more cautious due to the many dangers of the Nether.

• Lava is way too easy to fall into, and with no regeneration, you will die quickly.
• If you are not looking, you can walk directly into fire, which never burns out on netherrack.
• As fire damage can easily be a death sentence be sure to take a cauldron and a couple buckets of water with you, you can extinguish yourself by jumping into a cauldron filled with water.
• Be watchful for sharp drops, and never dig down. Many floors are only one block thick, with the sea of lava directly underneath.
• Wear at least one gold armor piece, so piglins are not hostile to you.
  • If you are having trouble finding gold in the overworld, you may also find it in the Nether in the form of nether gold ore, which can be used to make a pair of boots or golden apples.
• Do not attack zombified piglins, so all the other zombified piglins in the area don't swarm you, because you can easily get killed like that.
• Ghasts can quickly kill you, as well as blow out your portal. Surround your portal with cobblestone, and listen for their noises. It is easier to play with subtitles on.
  • In a pinch, smelt netherrack into nether brick. It will not be destroyed by ghast fireballs.
• Find some warped fungi, so if you encounter hoglins you can scare them off by placing one on a nylium block without taking damage.
• Remember, on your first visit your highest priority is to find a fortress to gather at least a single piece of nether wart (maybe some soul sand or soul soil to farm on) and at least two blaze rods. Opening up brewing makes future trips much safer with the likes of Fire Resist/Health potions. You can also bring water, bottles and ingredients with you and start brewing in the nether to farm more blaze rods safely without having to go back.
  • Remember to block off the ceilings in the fortress so wither skeletons cannot reach you. A single hit from a wither skeleton on unenchanted armor drains more than half of your health bar.
• Explore bastion remnants only if you have very good armor and regeneration supplies, because piglin brute attacks can be deadly. A bucket of lava is recommended to finish them off while ensuring your own safety by towering up.

The Overworld (Part II)

• Shipwrecks
  • If you find a shipwreck or ocean monument, be sure to bring doors to provide air pockets, even if you have water breathing potions. If those effects wear off, you'll likely drown fast without doors. Doors count as a block, so they can provide air pockets. You can also do this with gates and fences.

The End

• Enchant your sword, bow, and armor (all preferably diamond/netherite). Armor is especially important; go for Protection IV.
• Players can spawn on an obsidian platform which floats above the void. This leaves players very vulnerable to being knocked into the void by the ender dragon. To reduce this risk, keep an ender pearl on your hotbar while entering the End, so that you can teleport off the platform. Remember though that when you do this you will also take ender pearl damage.
  • Throwing an ender pearl and then eating a golden apple afterward will negate all damage given, plus give 2 extra hearts.
• Bringing in some potions can assist you in the fight:
  • Night vision makes it easier to spot the dragon in the dark
  • Slow falling negates fall damage when the dragon flings you in the air and gives you more time to place an ender pearl in case you get kicked off the island. Definitely use one if you don't feel safe using water buckets to break your fall!
  • Strength, speed and regeneration potions can come in useful too.
• Always use arrows or other projectiles to destroy end crystals, rather than melee weapons. Two of the End Crystals will always be enclosed by iron bars, but this can be bypassed by getting close to their towers and shooting them from the opening at the bottom of the iron bars.
• If you're prone to aggravating endermen, wear a carved pumpkin on your head. This will narrow your vision however, so be mindful of where you're walking. Pressing F1 while wearing the pumpkin as a helmet hides the pumpkin face, but will also hide your hotbar, health bar, and hunger bar. Alternative resource packs can make the pumpkin face texture transparent.