What Is the Minecraft End Poem?

This article explains Minecraft's End Poem. The Minecraft End Poem plays after you've defeated the Ender Dragon in Minecraft, the 'end goal' of the game's survival mode. Many commonly consider Reaching the End Poem 'the end of the game.'

How Do You See Minecraft's End Poem?

Minecraft is split into three core modes: Survival, Creative, and Multiplayer. The Multiplayer mode takes many forms but is always played with other people over the internet. Creative mode spawns you into a randomly generated world where you can express your creativity by building anything you can dream up.

Survival is Minecraft's primary mode, where you spawn into a randomly generated world and must acquire resources, build a shelter, and survive. There isn't a traditional 'end' to Minecraft's Survival mode like in most games, but slaying the mighty Ender Dragon is the closest Minecraft has to a proper ending.

Once the dragon lies dead at your feet, the End Poem begins to play during Minecraft's end credits.

What Is Minecraft's End Poem?

In 2011, Minecraft creator Markus "Notch" Persson invited friend and Irish poet Julian Gough to compose a poem for the ending of Minecraft, which was still in beta. To this day, the End Poem is the only significant narrative text in Minecraft.

The poem comes in the form of an ethereal, otherworldly dialogue between two unspecified entities. While it reads like a conversation, the poem refers to the player several times. The poem concludes with a series of lines that begin with "and the universe said," which has since become a fan-favorite section, spawning many tributes and tattoos.

There is some controversy surrounding the creation of the End Poem, as reportedly Julian Gough never signed a contract with Persson, the developer of Minecraft, Mojang, or Microsoft, which later purchased Mojang. Rather than profit off the poem or enter into a legal dispute, Gough has since released the poem into the public domain.

What Does Minecraft's End Poem Mean?

Well, that's up for interpretation.

There isn't exactly a canon 'meaning' to the poem, and it doesn't directly explain the in-game world. This is very much in line with Minecraft's overall approach to narrative, which is highly hands-off and doesn't bother with cutscenes, voiced characters, or even much text. For most intents and purposes, Minecraft doesn't have a story.

Fans and critics consider it 'dreamlike' and relatively 'meta'; however, while it's popular among fans, not all critics feel the same. Some argue that a lengthy poem at the end of a game without a real story is a strange choice, while others criticize the poem's writing.

Ultimately, it's up to you to read and decide what it means.