Minecraft: Phantom spawning explained

Phantoms are unique hostile mobs in Minecraft that spawn only under certain conditions controlled by the player. This means they will never spawn in a world if the game is played in a certain way. Hence, their spawning mechanic is very interesting.

Here is everything to know about how phantoms spawn in Minecraft.

---

Explained: Phantom spawning mechanic in Minecraft

The main condition that needs to be met for phantoms to spawn in Minecraft

Phantom's spawn depends on whether players have rested on a bed or not (Image via Mojang Studios)

In simple terms, Minecraft's code spawns phantoms based on whether a player has rested on a bed. Hence, if a player has not slept or rested on a bed for a while, the game will start spawning phantoms after a set of conditions are met.

More specifically, if a player spawns in a world, they have one real-life hour to find a bed and sleep to avoid phantoms to spawn. One hour means three in-game days. Hence, the game starts spawning phantoms if players have not slept in-game for three nights.

However, there are two ways the rest timer resets in the game: when the player dies and when the player successfully interacts with the bed. Players are not required to sleep and skip the entire night to reset the timer — they can just lay on the bed for a few seconds and leave.

Phantoms spawn in the Overworld, a few blocks above the player. After the player has not died or laid on a bed for three in-game days, Minecraft starts calculating other conditions that must be met for phantoms to spawn.

---

Conditions to spawn phantoms in Minecraft if a player does not sleep

Phantoms spawn only if players have a clear sky above them (Image via Mojang Studios)

After one's insomnia is detected, Minecraft checks if the player has no solid opaque block right on top of them. If they have an opaque block on top of them, it will disallow phantoms to spawn in the world. For example, even leaf blocks with a light opacity of 2 will block phantoms from spawning, but glass blocks with 0 light opacity will not.

Furthermore, phantoms' spawning is also affected by the overall mob and density cap of a chunk.

It is worth mentioning that phantom spawning mechanics are slightly different in the Java and Bedrock Editions. For example, they can only spawn during night or thunderstorms in Java Edition, but they can also spawn in the daytime in Bedrock Edition if the conditions are right. Of course, they will instantly start burning if they spawn outside a covered area.

One to two phantoms spawn in easy mode, one to three in normal mode, and one to four in hard mode.

---

Check out other latest Minecraft articles:

• Top 5 Minecraft building blocks that deserve new variants
• Should Minecraft Have an Ocean Boss?
• Minecraft player recreates The Bridge of Progress from the ARCANE series