Death

The death screen as seen in Bedrock Edition.

For the command that causes death, see Commands.

Death is a game mechanic that affects both mobs and players in certain game modes within a Minecraft world. It only happens to mobs or players losing all their health or by players using the /kill command.

Player Death

There are a wide variety of ways for a player to die while in Survival mode or Adventure mode. Below is a list of the most common ways:

• Killed by "Intentional game design" (trying to use a bed in the Nether or the End).
• Killed via potion effect (Such as an 'Instant Damage' potion).
• Kinetic Energy (Flying into blocks using an elytra).
• Killing oneself (By using an arrow or a trident).
• Bee Sting (Attacking a bee/Destroying a beehive)
• Attacking an Iron Golem
• Attacking a llama.
• Attacking a wolf.
• Killed by a hostile mob.
• Fall damage
• Fire damage
• Suffocation in solid blocks.
• Killed by another player.
• Using the /kill command.
• Falling out of the world (or void damage).                                              
• Dragon breath (killed by the Ender Dragon).
• Drowning (running out of oxygen while underwater)
• Killed by firework rockets .
• Having too many entities in the same space.
• Crushed by a falling anvil.
• Blown up by TNT.
• Blown up by an End Crystal
• Killed by the Wither status effect.
• Killed by cactus thorns.
• Starvation (Depending on the difficulty setting)
• Ender Pearls (Using an ender pearl while at low health)
• Walking into a Sweet Berry Bush
• By being struck by Lightning

Upon death, different things may happen, dependent on game rules and difficulty setting.

The ways above are called "death messages". A complete list of "death messages" can be found here.

Respawning

In survival mode, when the difficulty is set to peaceful, easy, normal or hard, a player will have the option to respawn when they die. A player will appear at their spawn point, which will either be the original area they appeared when they first entered the world or beside the most recent bed that they slept in (usually without anything in their inventory). In Hardcore Mode, however, there is no option to respawn. The only options are to either delete the entire Minecraft world or to switch to Spectator Mode.

Gamerule

The only game rule that affects death is keepInventory. If enabled, a player will respawn with all of their inventory (even if an item has the curse of vanishing enchantment). The alternative is having to run back to where they died to reclaim their items before they despawn.

Gamemode

In survival, hardcore and adventure mode, one can die by any of the methods mentioned above. In Creative Mode and spectator mode, however, the user can only be killed either by the /kill command or by exposure to the void.

Mob Death

A mob can die in any of the ways a player can die, with some exceptions. Whenever a mob dies, their skin flashes red for a brief moment, they fall over on their side, (with the exceptions being spiders and cave spiders, who will flip upside down instead, squid, who will not flip at all, and will just turn red and die in a puff of smoke, exploding creepers, who will disappear immediately after exploding without playing a death animation, and the wither and the ender dragon, who will rise into the air before exploding violently), and vanish in a wisp of smoke as they despawn. They may leave behind some items and experience points on the ground where they died.

Two exceptions to the typical death effect are when an Ender Dragon or the Wither dies. If the ender dragon is killed, it floats up slightly and breaks down into beams of light, creating an End gateway, which may be used to escape the End. If the wither is killed or spawned, its body becomes white and unstable and will explode afterward, damaging very high of health to all nearby mobs.