How to craft Respawn Anchors in Minecraft

Minecraft - a respawn anchor made of crying obsidian sitting near a lava sea
(Image credit: Mojang)

What is a Minecraft Respawn Anchor, and how do you use it? It's just one of the many interesting new items to come to the game as part of update 1.16. As part of the Nether update, you'll find yourself plumbing the deep dark of Mojang's blocky underworld to take advantage of some of the new items found amid its murky depths. 

One of the most useful new items is the Respawn Anchor, despite the fact it's got nothing to do with fishing. Anyway, here's everything you need to know about this handy new tool, and how to craft it by farming some Minecraft Crying Obsidian.

What does a Minecraft Respawn Anchor do?

A Respawn Anchor is a new kind of block that allows you to set your spawn point in the Nether. Now, that comes with a fair few risks, but you should already know just how dangerous this area is already, so it's seriously useful to have this backup. 

Once you’ve crafted a Respawn Anchor block, you need to charge it with Glowstone. You can increase the charge up to a fourth level by using more of these crystalline clusters, too. Every time you use it to respawn it’ll go down a charge level, so keep it charged if you want to keep using it.

Image

Minecraft house ideas: Base inspiration
Minecraft mansion: Big house blueprints
Minecraft cabin: Snowy abode ideas
Minecraft castle: Massive medieval builds

How to make a Respawn Anchor in Minecraft

Best of Minecraft

Minecraft 1.20 - Steve celebrates his new camel pal

(Image credit: Mojang)

Minecraft update: What's new?
Minecraft skins: New looks
Minecraft mods:  Beyond vanilla
Minecraft shaders: Spotlight
Minecraft seeds: Fresh new worlds
Minecraft texture packs: Pixelated
Minecraft servers: Online worlds
Minecraft commands: All cheats
Minecraft build ideas: What to build next

To craft a Respawn Anchor you’ll need a total of nine blocks. Three of those blocks need to be Glowstone, which you can find dotted around the Nether. The other six blocks all need to be Crying Obsidian, and while you think you might be able to get that throwing onions at normal Obsidian, you actually need to put in a bit more work to get hold of this rare block type—more on that below.

Minecraft Crying Obsidian: what it is and how to farm it

Crying Obsidian is also a glowing form of Obsidian. However, you can’t simply mash water and lava together to create it. Instead, you’ll need to track down either a Ruined Portal, or a Bastion Remnant in the Nether. The former will have some Crying Obsidian as part of the frame. The latter will require you to find chests within the Bastion Remnant and keep your fingers crossed that maybe RNG will bless you with this rare material. 

There isn't strictly a way of farming Crying Obsidian in Minecraft, you just have to go on a lot of adventures. You’ll need to scour the Nether for the Ruined Portals and Bastion Remnants and either mine or grab it from chests. This is a time-consuming affair, but at the moment, there’s not a more efficient way to increase your stock of it. Keep in mind that you can only mine Crying Obsidian with a Minecraft Diamond Pickaxe or above, too.

Read more
Minecraft seeds - a pair of towering islands, a jungle and a mesa
The best Minecraft seeds in 2025
Jack Black with mining gear.
'3 hours of my life that I'll never get back': A Minecraft modder did the lord's work, creating a mod that adds Jack Black's voice to the game
Diablo 4 Resplendent Sparks - Lilith
How to get Resplendent Sparks in Diablo 4
Minecraft servers - An above view from Mineplex
The 15 best Minecraft servers
Avowed adra locations - An adra pillar used as a campsite in the Scatterscarp region.
How to get adra in Avowed
Minecraft mods - Terralith shows off one of its biomes
The best Minecraft mods for glorious new worlds
Latest in Survival & Crafting
Sunset in the desert in Hello Sunshine
Hello Sunshine is a desert survival sandbox where you live in the literal shadow of the colossus
Performers acting as zombies are seen on a train coach during the "Train to Apocalypse" event as part of the Pandora Box Artmire Festival 2024 held to attract commuters to ride the city's rapid transit system LRT (light rapid transit), in Jakarta on July 11, 2024. (Photo by BAY ISMOYO / AFP) (Photo by BAY ISMOYO/AFP via Getty Images)
Venerable browser-based MMO Urban Dead is closing this week after a 20-year run, not with a bang but with a whimper
Wearing a hazmat suit, a Rust player proudly holds up a freshly cooked pie, foregrounded by a table covered with pies and a large pumpkin on the left.
Rust's crafting update gives the survival sim real-time food cooking and pies to rival Monster Hunter, but the tastiest treat is the ability to make and throw 'bee grenades'
A pig, a cow, and two birds dance
Minecraft Live returns in March with everyone's favorite kind of content: 'exclusive movie content'
An explosion in a desert environment
Survival sandbox Core Keeper gets explosive next week with a whole new skill tree devoted to bombs and grenades
Dead in Antares screenshot
The tough luck continues in Dead in Antares, the newest addition to the long-running series about people trying not to lose their heads in bad situations
Latest in Features
Monster Hunter Wilds' stockpile master studying a manifest
Monster Hunter Wilds' new gyro controls are a fantastic option for disabled and able-bodied players alike
A busy marketplace in The Bazaar.
The Bazaar could be the future of autobattlers, if it stops strangling itself to death with its own microtransactions
Marvel Rivals characters - Hulk with his hands out as if he's grabbing the camera.
Marvel Rivals' growing roster of heroes scares me, but the game's director seems sure that all is under control: 'Everything is progressing smoothly'
Rainbow Six Siege year 9 season 2 key art - two Rainbow Six Siege operators facing each other
'Siege 2 was never on the table': Rainbow Six Siege X director explains why the 10-year-old FPS doesn't need a sequel
Gallica and the protagonist from Metaphor: ReFantazio.
The best deals in the 2025 Steam Spring Sale
Hands pushing poker chips on a table
Winning $2.6 billion in this poker videogame has completely ruined fake poker for me