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.
This is what happens when a Minecraft lake gets deep enough to cause worldgen to break down. It’s extremely rare and happens (close to spawn) only around once in every 5 million seeds!Seed: 1004611161 pic.twitter.com/5K4UWobwfXDecember 2, 2022
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.
We found another crazy Minecraft lake that breaks worldgen even harder than the last one. This one even has a village in it!Sinkholes this dramatic, close to spawn, are only found in around one in every 500 million seeds.Seed: 4325227337 pic.twitter.com/uhlnivV7BBDecember 5, 2022
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.
