Darkness is a status effect that causes the player's vision to temporarily deteriorate. The effect is caused by the activation of a sculk shrieker, or by being within detection range of a warden.
Effect[]
Darkness, when applied, dims the player's vision. A dark vignette appears around the player, which initially makes faraway objects hard to see. The vignette then steadily closes in around the player, diminishing the player's eyesight. The player can only see about 14 blocks away. When the effect wears off, the vignette retreats and the player's vision reverts to normal. Unlike Blindness, Darkness does not leave a circle of unaffected vision centered on the player; moreover, luminous objects such as fire can still be seen even when viewed from far away by a player with the effect applied.
With the Darkness effect, the player's vision slowly cycles every few seconds between complete darkness, and relative visibility where they can see within a distance of roughly 14 blocks. The strength of this pulsing effect can be adjusted using the "Darkness Pulsing"[JE only]/"Darkness effect strength"[BE only] slider under the accessibility settings, which is normally at 100%; when set to 0%, the player's vicinity does not darken at all, but their vision is still restricted to about 14 blocks.
Unlike other status effects, Darkness does not cause particles to appear around the player when it is naturally activated, nor does its icon appear in the player's heads-up display in Java Edition.[1] This is similar to when an effect is given using the /effect command with the hideParticles argument set to true. However, the particles do appear when hideParticles is set to false, and the effect's icon can be seen when entering the player's inventory.
Causes[]
| Cause | Potency | Length | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Sculk Shrieker (naturally generated) | I | 0:13 | When activated, to players within 40 blocks |
| Warden | I | 0:13 | Every 6 seconds, to players within 20 blocks |
Data values[]
ID[]
| Name | Identifier | Numeric ID | Translation key |
|---|---|---|---|
| Darkness | darkness | 33 | effect.minecraft.darkness |
| Name | Identifier | Numeric ID | Translation key |
|---|---|---|---|
| Darkness | darkness | 30 | effect.darkness |
Advancements[]
| Icon | Advancement | In-game description | Parent | Actual requirements (if different) | Resource location |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 | How Did We Get Here? | Have every effect applied at the same time | A Furious Cocktail | Have all of these 27 status effects applied to the player at the same time:
This is a hidden advancement, meaning that it can be viewed by the player only after completing it, regardless of if its child advancement(s), if any, have been completed. | nether/all_effects
|
History[]
| October 3, 2020 | Darkness was shown in Minecraft Live 2020. | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| October 16, 2021 |  More information was announced about Darkness, revealing that it is a status effect and is given by sculk shriekers. The Darkness effect was delayed until The Wild Update. | ||||
| Java Edition | |||||
| 1.19 | Deep Dark Experimental Snapshot 1 | Added Darkness. | |||
| 22w11a | Darkness is not added yet in this non-experimental snapshot. | ||||
| 22w12a | Re-added Darkness. | ||||
| 22w15a | Darkness is now needed for the "How Did We Get Here?" advancement. | ||||
| Bedrock Edition | |||||
| Vanilla Experiments (experimental) | beta 1.18.0.22 | Added Darkness. | |||
| Wild Update (experimental) | beta 1.18.10.21 | Moved the Darkness effect to the Wild Update experimental toggle. | |||
| 1.19.0 | beta 1.19.0.20 | Darkness is now available without enabling experimental gameplay. | |||
Issues[]
Issues relating to "Darkness" are maintained on the bug tracker. Report issues there.