This catastrophic, lava-spewing Minecraft world is such a disaster that it only happens once every 500 million seeds

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A sinkhole this dangerous, this close to spawn, is very rare

Minecraft
(Image credit: Mojang / Stardust Labs)

This 1-in-500 million Minecraft world is definitely not where you want to be. 

Launched all the way back in 2011, Minecraft is still one of the most popular games on the planet. Each month millions of players log in to search for materials, craft tools and items, and build beautiful blocky structures. And as each of the game's worlds are procedurally generated, all sorts of strange things can happen. 

Stardust Labs, a Minecraft development group, found this out firsthand when it discovered a lake so deep that it caused the game's world-generating capabilities to break down in a rather spectacular fashion. As you can see from the image below, this resulted in a whopping great sinkhole forming right in the middle of the lake. "It's extremely rare and happens (close to spawn) only around once in every five million seeds!" says Stardust Labs.

If you're curious as to how this can come about, according to Stardust Labs, rivers and lakes are controlled by something called Weirdness. "When Weirdness gets high enough (above around 1.2), it starts creating lakes," it explains. "However, if it gets above around 1.85, it becomes deeper than the bottom of the world, breaking the entire aquifer system."

If that wasn't weird enough, the team found an even bigger game-breaking lake just days later, and worse still; there was a village trapped in this one.

The chances of this level of devastation actually happening are extremely rare, as Stardust Labs explains: "Sinkholes this dramatic, close to spawn, are only found in around one in every 500 million seeds." A follow-up post clarifies that, in this instance, the Weirdness value is -2.103, while the expected range is between -1.2 and 1.2. Oh yeah, it's gonna get weird. 

This is far from the only part of Minecraft that sometimes goes horribly wrong. Just recently, a modder attempted to prevent fall damage to bunnies and somehow managed to make them explode instead.

Looking for another world builder or sandbox game to play? Check out these games like Minecraft.

Anne-Marie Ostler
Anne-Marie Ostler
Freelance Writer

Originally from Ireland, I moved to the UK in 2014 to pursue a Games Journalism and PR degree at Staffordshire University. Following that, I've freelanced for GamesMaster, Games TM, Official PlayStation Magazine and, more recently, Play and GamesRadar+. My love of gaming sprang from successfully defeating that first Goomba in Super Mario Bros on the NES. These days, PlayStation is my jam. When not gaming or writing, I can usually be found scouring the internet for anything Tomb Raider related to add to my out of control memorabilia collection.