Tutorials/Starting in the Nether

Obviously there are several ways to take on this challenge.

Start in the nether and build a portal to get out.
- Just mine gold and barter with piglins.
Start in the nether and bring stuff from the overworld.
- Build farms in the nether using minimum overworld resources -- a few cactus, or a dirt block and a sapling.
- Explore the overworld, but treat the nether as your home base, bringing back resources from the overworld.
Start in the nether and stay in the nether
- Make use of limited resources in unusual and novel ways.
- Difficulty will be a trade off between mob attack strength and mob farming.

For the sake of completeness, this tutorial focuses on staying in the nether without any overworld help.

Check out Nether Survival Let's Play by wattles.

And if you're going to use creative mode to build the portal to start, give yourself a respawn anchor right away as well. I promise you it's not cheating. Nether survival is nearly unplayable otherwise, unless you're a really bold player or you get a really good starting location. You'll need diamond or netherite to break it though. You can make more respawn anchors once you get crying obsidian from piglins.

You can also use the Nether Spawn addon.

TL;DR: Points to keep in mind[]

Also check out Tutorials/Nether survival.

Find a crimson (red) or warped (blue) fungus biome and harvest the fungus stems for wood, then build a crafting bench and craft wooden tools. Now you can mine blackstone (for stone tools), gold ore (everything Piglin), and basalt (Ghasts can't break it), but not gold blocks (you'll need iron for that).
Don't forget about the Blaze spawners, chests, and Nether Wart in nether fortresses.
Mushroom stew and Hoglins are the only food sources (besides rotten flesh from Zombie Piglins).
Wear gold armor so piglins don't attack you.
If all you want to do is get to the overworld, just dig out gold and kill zombie piglins, then trade with piglins until you get 10 obsidian and a fire charge. I promise you it's the quickest way.(nope that isn’t, the quickest way is to find a ruined portal, grab obsidian inside, and rebuild it)
Don't forget about netherite. Once you upgrade your diamond tools and armor to netherite they can be repaired on an anvil with netherite ingots!

Biomes helpful in getting started[]

The fungus biomes are essential for wood blocks to make a crafting table and wooden tools.
The nether waste makes it easy to find exposed gold.
Blackstone (to replace cobblestone for stone tools) can often be found around the lava lake level.
Basalt biomes also have blackstone, and basalt is a nice building block that ghasts can't blow up.
Nether fortress chests have iron and other epic stuff in very limited amounts.

Make gold armor. One piece is enough to convince pigmen you're a good guy. It will save you a lot of trouble, especially in the Crimson Forest biome.

Nether biomes[]

Warped Forests[]

Only endermen spawn here.

Crimson Forests[]

Piglins and hoglins spawn here. Hoglins drop porkchops, an epic food source.
Piglins can be bartered with (or rather offerred gold to see what they'll give you). This gives you arrows, obsidian, crying obsidian (for respawn anchor), and fire resistance potions, as well as iron nuggets which can be crafted into iron tools.

Nether Wastes[]

Large expanses of netherack plains with ghasts, piglins, and zombie piglins. Easy to find exposed gold here.

Basalt Deltas[]

Polished basalt is a nice, craftable building block which ghasts can't blow up.
Blackstone is often just under the surface.

The basalt columns can protect you from ghasts while you're working around the area, but beware of magma cubes!

Soul sand valleys[]

Skeletons and ghasts spawn here. Not much here besides nether fossils and occasional basalt columns.

Nether Fortresses[]

Build a blaze spawner farm using blocks. Build it 9 blocks down then funnel in by one block each row until you get to a one block hole. Drop the hole down two or three blocks and then leave a one block gap at the bottom so you can kill them and collect the blaze rods. This gives you blaze rods and blaze powder (to make an ender chest with!).
The chests have decent loot, especially iron (required for mining gold blocks).

Piglin bartering[]

Nether fortress[]

Build a Blaze spawner farm without redstone

Build in a diamond shape with 1 block of air above, 4 blocks on each side, and 9 blocks below the spawner, then (at the bottom) funnel in by one block each row down until you get to a one block hole. Drop the hole down two or three blocks and then leave a one block gap at the bottom so you can kill them and collect the blaze rods. This gives you blaze rods (craft blaze powder to make an ender chest with!).

Blaze Farm With ZERO REDSTONE by Prowl8413

Build crash bars across walk ways

Put blocks across the hall way the third block up to protect you from Wither Skeletons.

Take the chest too.

Break the chest. Sure you have unlimited wood, but at least you'll know which areas you've already been in.

Farm spawning locations

On Bedrock, nether fortresses have specific spawning locations spread throughout the fortress, probably corresponding to the individual structural components.

silentwisperer - Using glass panes or fences
FoxyNoTail - Using command blocks or guessing based on structure

Bastion Remnant[]

There are 4 types of these: Bridges, Housing, Hoglin Stables, Treasure. Choose the one you are most familiar with, or Housing if you are not familiar with any.

Here are some tips:

Take as much gold as you can: It is useful for bartering with Piglins. Chiseled Polished blackstone means there is gold.
Make a Magma Cube farm after finishing: Endless supply of Magma cream. Only applies to Treasure Room bastions.

The chest loot is decent, but treasure room bastions have the best loot, however it is the most dangerous one. Gather as much weapons (crossbow, enchanted swords), arrows for crossbows, Armor, gold.

Potions[]

Nether Fortress

Gather Nether Wart (You can farm from just a single Wart, but if you have time you can gather more.)
Kill Blazes (If you can't find a spawner or don't want to deal with it, build dividers in the passage ways and leave a one block hole in the center to kill blazes through)

Make sure you have a reliable way to get back if you need to return for more Blaze Rods.

Craft a brewing stand using blackstone in place of cobblestone.

Piglins can give Potions of Fire Resistance. If you drink these, you'll get the bottle back, which is used for potion-brewing. They also give water bottles. Don't drink those as they are your only source of water in the nether.

Or go to the overworld and make bottles there.

After this, you can find the following Potion ingredients in the Nether:

Base Recipe

Nether Wart (Awkward potion)
Gunpowder (from Ghasts) (Splash potions)

Effect Recipe

Blaze Powder (Potion of Strength)
Ghast Tear (Potion of Regeneration)
Magma Cream (Potion of Fire Resistance)

Power Recipe

Glow dust (Level 2 potions)

Mob farms[]

On Java: Almost all the nether gold farms on Youtube only work on Java, so you're in luck. Bedrock doesn't have the same agro mechanics for zombie piglins as Java does, so they're not really possible on Bedrock. Definitely build yourself a nether gold farm. The insane rates are totally worth it.

On Bedrock

You can build a regular mob farm and the spawns will depend on the biome you're in. If you want to farm only zombie pigmen, build the spawning platforms out of magma blocks instead of regular blocks, but make sure you're in a biome that spawns zombie pigmen.

If you build the farm at the top of the nether (Y=120), you can just have the mobs drop off and die from fall damage, and then run around below them picking up the drops.
The list of air blocks that mobs think they can pathfind over tends to change over time, it seems, so make sure the method you're using actually works the way you expect. They still drop off without any fake blocks, it just might take longer.
Your drop platform should be made of blackstone bottom slabs. That way ghasts can't blow it up and piglins and hoglins won't spawn on it.
If you spawn proof with lava, then striders spawn, ruining the rates (I tried it), so find a place with enough area that you can actually stop things from spawning if you stand at the right place. Build a standard mob farm with the AFK spot near the roof. You'll need to find the sweet spot between being high enough above the lava lake, and low enough the mobs don't despawn as they drop. You can also spawn proof with half slabs if you want.

Here's a truly bedrock episode by silentwisperer where they build a gold farm

Random tips[]

Ghasts drop gunpowder, which is used to make splash potions.
Once you get some coal from wither skeletons, you can use it to build a campfire. When you break it you should get two charcoal every time.
Use fence gates instead of doors. Magma cubes can't jump over them, but you can hit over them. Piglins can open doors but not fence gates, so put a trapdoor above the fence so you can flip it down if piglins or blazes are shooting at you over the gate.
Don't let hard mode burn you out. Try easy mode just to see what it's like, even if you're used to hard mode. It can make a difference, especially earlier in the game. Roll a dice and set it accordingly, if you like.

Useful items to bring from the overworld[]

If you want to keep things simple but somehow bring a little extra, here are a few ideas.

Dirt. Grows just about everything else.
A few saplings. Wood can be smelted for charcoal.
Sugar cane. Can't grow it in the nether. And an elytra?
Cactus. Makes a really good AFK magma cube farm with hoppers.
Bamboo. For scaffolding.
Carrots and melons. For potions.
Ice. Basalt generator.
Two Wolves. Alternative to trident killers.
Stone (for grindstone, stone cutter, blast furnace, and armor stand)
Sand (for glass and TNT).
Turtle eggs. For the gold farm.

If you want to completely change the experience bring these.

Two Villagers.

Helpful addons[]

Foxy's markers (armor stand spawning sphere) by FoxyNoTail.
Remove particle effects by FoxyNoTail.
Xray pack by d6b (good for spawn proofing or finding ores).

Gallery[]

Soul sand valley biome.
Nether wastes biome.
Crimson forest biome.
Nether fortress with blaze spawner and some blazes.
Warped forest biome with some endermen.
Basalt delta biome with nether fortress.
Bastion remnant in Nether Wastes biome.