Comparing the Sift with the Nether and the End is lopsided by nature. The Nether and the End are established parts of Minecraft, and their portals, mobs and bosses are thoroughly documented. The Sift is the new arrival: Minecraft’s fourth dimension and the first new one in 14 years, playable today only in Minecraft Dungeons II and due in Java & Bedrock Edition in 2027. So in most rows below, the Sift column reads Not announced. That is the honest state of things, not a gap we forgot to fill.
Facts about the Nether and the End come from minecraft.wiki, a community wiki. Facts about the Sift come from Mojang’s announcements unless labeled as community records. Nothing about the older dimensions is used here to predict how the Sift will work.
Side by side
| The Nether | The End | The Sift | |
|---|---|---|---|
| In Java & Bedrock | Yes | Yes | Coming in 2027; exact date Not announced |
| First added | Java Edition Alpha v1.2.0 (Halloween Update) | Java Edition 1.0.0 | Minecraft Dungeons II, September 29, 2026 |
| How you get in | An obsidian Nether portal you build and light | The End portal in a stronghold, activated with eyes of ender | Dungeons II: “step through the rift.” Java & Bedrock: Not announced |
| Character | Volcanic, fungal, a “hellish underworld” | Void-like islands of End stone | “Threats, mysteries, and breathtaking beauty” |
| Named areas | — | — | Biomes including Meadows and Carapace; others kept secret |
| Mobs | Mostly hostile; striders are the only fully passive Nether-exclusive mob | Endermen, shulkers and the ender dragon | New mobs, “both companions and threats, all unique”; some are friendly |
| Boss | — | The ender dragon | Not announced (community records conflict) |
| Special mechanic | 8:1 travel scale against the Overworld | Defeating the dragon opens the exit portal home | Shifting tides, which affect your character and those around you |
Getting in: two known recipes and one open question
The Nether is the dimension you build your own way into. minecraft.wiki describes the frame as a rectangle of obsidian, anywhere from 4 × 5 blocks up to 23 × 23, which becomes a portal once you set fire inside it — with flint and steel, a fire charge or anything else that can ignite. Distances are scaled too: one block traveled in the Nether equals eight blocks in the Overworld.
The End works the other way around: the portal already exists, and the job is finding it. Eyes of ender lead you to a stronghold; in its portal room, twelve End portal frames wait for an eye each before the portal opens.
The Sift has no equivalent answer yet. For Java & Bedrock Edition, Mojang has said it “isn’t talking too much about how to access the Sift,” and no portal block, item or ritual has been confirmed. In Dungeons II, the official description is a single phrase — “step through the rift” — without detail on how rifts are found or opened. Community records, not officially confirmed: minecraft.wiki records that in Dungeons II the Sift is entered through the Deep Dark portal using a Note Block Machine. That is a Dungeons II record, and it says nothing about the 2027 version. Our guide to getting to the Sift goes through each claim.
Who lives there
On paper, the Sift’s inhabitants differ from the Nether’s in tone. minecraft.wiki notes that most Nether creatures are hostile, and the strider is the only Nether-exclusive mob that is fully passive. Mojang, by contrast, has gone out of its way to say that some of the Sift’s inhabitants are friendly, describing its new mobs as “both companions and threats, all unique.”
What that means in practice is still unknown. Mojang has not given a number of new Sift mobs, and their stats, drops and spawning rules are all Not announced. The Sift mobs page separates what Mojang said from what the community has recorded.
Final bosses
The End has the clearest endgame of any dimension: the ender dragon spawns on your first visit, there is no portal back until it is defeated, and the exit portal it leaves behind rolls the credits and returns you to the Overworld. minecraft.wiki calls it the final boss.
For the Sift, Mojang has not announced boss details. Community records of Dungeons II exist, but they disagree with each other on the names, the number and which encounters count as bosses rather than minibosses. Until that can be confirmed in-game, we are not printing a list.
What this comparison cannot tell you
It is tempting to reason that because the Nether and the End have portals, bosses and travel tricks, the Sift will too. None of that follows. Mojang has not said how the Minecraft version of the Sift will differ from the Dungeons II version, and it points players to Dungeons II as the best preview and to future Minecraft LIVE events for more. When those details arrive, this table will be updated; until then, the empty cells stay empty.
For the confirmed basics, start with what the Sift is; for the two named biomes, see Sift biomes.