This is the Apocalypse Challenge Dimension! Originally designed as a world preset for extreme-hardcore mode challenges, this new world generation includes the following features:

• Floating End-Island style generation
• Custom feature and structure generation including custom trees, bedrock spires, and a second-layer mirror island underneath!
• No sky light
  Small amount of ambient lighting
• Customized mob spawns (lightning creepers instead of regular, Vindicators instead of zombies, spiders upgraded to cave spiders, etc)
• Nether ambience noises
• Increased witch spawn rates
• Nether Bastion Remnants disabled
• Nether Ruined portals disabled
• Any helpful overworld structures like villages, desert temples, and mineshafts have been disabled
• And so much more!

Before creating the new world, there is an option available for a more difficult method of exiting the Nether as part of the challenge. To first enter the Nether, you simply dive into the void in the Overworld. To get back, you need to drink a fire resistance potion (you need to have the effect active for this to work), then dive into a pool of lava in the Nether. Once the world detects you are engulfed in lava, it brings you back to the overworld. This means you need to make sure you have everything you need to make potions BEFORE you go to the Nether. There is an option to disable this setting however. Simply go into the main datapack folder, and you will see the folders:


"disabled_portal" , "enabled_portal" , "data" , "pack.mcmeta" , "pack.png"



By default, challenge Nether escape is enabled. But, if you would like to leave the Nether via standard portals, simply take the folder "data" and put it back into the "disabled_portal" folder. Then go into the "enabled_portal" folder and bring the "data" folder out of it, into the main folder. See the demonstration video above for reference. I promise it's simpler than it sounds! If you would like to leave the challenge escape on, no worries! It's enabled by default, so you don't have to do anything!


Once you are creating a new world, select the button "Data Packs" then drag and drop this file into the pane. Make sure to click the arrow to bring it onto the >right> side, this loads the pack into the world. Once the world is created, you will immediately teleport to the Apocalypse dimension. As soon as you are in, the datapack will automatically load the initial setup function and execute the following commands:




/gamerule naturalRegeneration false
/gamerule doDaylightCycle false
/time set 1554000t
/gamerule commandBlockOutput false
/gamerule randomTickSpeed 6
/xp add @a -100
/recipe give @a *

Here is a quick run-through of the commands to understand what they are for.

/gamerule naturalRegeneration false disables health regeneration. This means you will not recover health when your hunger is full. This setting is the basis for all Ultra Hardcore mode runs.
/gamerule doDaylightCycle false disables the day-night cycle, meaning it will be permanent night.
/time set 1554000t After daylight cycle is off, this sets the time to midnight, on a full moon, on the 64th night. This is manipulating something called Regional Difficulty. In the world options, everyone knows you can set your game to Peaceful, Easy, Normal, or Hard. However, in truth it's not quite that simple. As the difficulty scales up, enemies will have stronger weapons and armor, spiders will spawn with potion effects more often, and enemies are just much more challenging in general. There are many factors that play into this setting. For example, regional difficulty goes up during a full moon, during midnight, and depending on how long you've played (with the playtime capping at the 64th night) So by setting the time to this exact value, we maximize all these settings at once, garunteeing that all the monsters we face will be far more challenging than normal.
/gamerule randomTickSpeed 6 Random Tick Speed determines the rate that random events occur at, like crops growing or leaves decaying. The default is 3, now it will be set to 6. Put simply, things grow twice as fast, leaves decay twice as fast. This was a quality-of-life inclusion to ensure that the playthrough wasn't a boring waiting game.
/xp add @a -100 This is for a side effect of teleporting between dimensions. As the teleport is taking place, the player is given the levitation effect for a breif period to ensure they don't take any fall damage from lag as they teleport. The problem is, once a player has the levitation effect and they teleport, they are automatically given the achievemnt "Great View From Up Here" and gifted a large amount of xp for it. This simply removes the free xp from the initial teleport.
/recipe give @a * Nobody likes having their screen fill up with "New Recipe!" notifications every couple seconds on every world. This was another quality of life change that unlocks all the recipes to the player right off the bat.






I hope you enjoy the pack I've put together! It was designed to be played on Hardcore mode, but you can try it however you like!
If you notice any errors, glitches, or inconsistencies of any kind, please report them here so I can fix them. Also, if you have any ideas for further improvements, leave your ideas below! Thank you for checking out my Hardcore mode Challenge Dimension!



GAMEPLAY STORY (skip reading this section if you want to enter the world blind and find out the challenges as you go!)

Once you start up the world, you will notifce there is a distinct lack of all life you hold dear. Water is scarce, dirt is a commodity, and trees are rare. Once you find your first tree, you will likely aquire stone immediately after. But then you will find a problem, "I found iron, but there doesn't seem to be coal to cook it with!" That's right! As part of the challenge world generation, coal has been disabled! So you think "no problem, I'll just cook this wood into charcoal" The problem is, the trees are made from warped wood from the Nether; they don't burn or cook! In short, finding fuel will be a problem, but this is only the beginning of your struggles.

It won't take long to realize you are getting hungry, and it just now occured to you that you haven't seen any animals. No vegetation, in fact, no food at all! By this point, you will likely have already taken a beating on your first playthrough, and may end up starving to death. NEW WORLD. Now with more experience, you no you must be extremely cautions with preserving hunger. "I can't sprint, i'll make ladders and slabs instead of jumping, and avoid combat". Or perhaps, you will dive straight into the Nether right off the bat. Great idea, now you don't have to worry about food because you can hunt hoglins! Except, the problem is, how do you get back? And did you remember to get any iron armor or tools before you left? Here is a good point to remember:

WITCHES HAVE HEAVILY INCREASED SPAWN RATES IN THE OVERWORLD. Use this to your advantage. Sand doesn't exist, so your best bet for getting bottles to make fire resistance potions is by killing witches early game. Either that, or leave it all up to RNG and hope for generous piglins!