10 Famous Minecraft Maps LOST to Time

Over the 13 year history of minecraft,  there have been some iconic custom maps   brought forth to the community. Whether it was  bringing a mass of people together on youtube,   pushing a minecraft challenge to its absolute  limit, or just simply presenting the game in  

A different way, there’s no doubt that the  map making community has made a gargantuan   impact on Minecraft’s community since  it began, and played a huge role in   popularizing the game to the general public,  especially in the early days. And so today,  

I’d like to take a nostalgic journey into  some of the most famous maps ever created.   And maybe shine some light on ones you may  have somehow never heard of. So sit back,   grab your favorite drink and cozy up, and enjoy  the trip through 10 minecraft maps lost to time.

I’d like to start the video with my personal  favorite and most nostalgic map. The original   survival island. Released in december of 2010  by Ashien, this map was originally made popular   by the yogscast. Yogscast Lewis and Simon began the  survival island series in early january 2011,  

Just a week after the map was made. The  concept of survival island is incredibly simple,   you begin the world on a resource starved island,  featuring 1 tree, a bit of sugarcane and cacti,   and a tiny amount of dirt. Originally, the only  rules set by Ashien was you could not leave the  

Island, and you could not mod the game in any way. Over  the years though, players have come up with   their own set of challenges for the map, giving  it more life and a different experience every time  

It’s loaded up. It provided a new challenge that  players weren’t really used to in 2010 to 2011.   It completely spiced up minecraft as we knew it,  and the mindblowing part is that it’s so simple.  

I mean, I doubt when it was created ashien ever imagined how iconic  this map would become. Now, the original forum   thread by Ashien is still up, but the post  itself has since been discontinued. However,   you can still find the map in a different  minecraft forum thread I’ve linked below.  

You know the funniest thing though? The very first  reply to the original post was a hate comment,   calling the map pointless and stupid. I wonder  how you’re doing these days, thetaco1234567. Continuing on with the yogscast nostalgia  real quick, the next logical iconic map  

Would be the shadow of israphel adventure map.  If you’re unaware, and I guess spoiler alert   even though it’s been literally 12 years *reverb  and zoom out* – god that literally makes me feel   1000 years old – shadow of israphel is a story  driven continuation of the survival island series.  

It features Yogscast Lewis and Simon getting rescued by  a large airship and going on this grand quest   to save the world. I know they’ll probably never  watch this video, and this statement is 12 years  

Too late, but just in case – guys, you literally  broke the only rules of the map. Ashien said no   mods and don’t leave the island and you managed  to do both in one fell swoop. Grumpy old man  

Criticism aside though, we have to put ourselves  back into 2011 minecraft youtube. A time when not   only minecraft as a game was up and coming, but  youtube itself was still pretty experimental.   People were just kind of figuring out what people  wanted to see, and this was absolutely the case  

For minecraft. That being said, the shadow of  israphel map deserves a spot on this list because   it pioneered a new way to present minecraft in  a youtube video. A creatively genius story told   through a sandbox game, something that hadn’t  really ever been done before on the platform. Minecraft youtube  

Was really just a sea of let’s plays back then.  It’s kind of surreal visiting the places alone on   the map, like the astley residence, the great desert wall containing the   spread of the sand, the cemetery, Fumblemore’s  tower. It give an almost eerie and liminal feeling to  

Explore, but in a good way. Shadow of israphel  will forever live as a core memory for many. Would it really be a famous old minecraft map  list video without the temple of notch? Perhaps   the most famous and iconic map on this list, the  temple of notch was created and released in the  

Fall of 2011 by FVDisco. It is a large replica  of the head of minecraft’s original creator notch,   carved into a mountain. You could enter the  temple by throwing a quote unquote “offering”   to Notch through a small pool just outside. This  would hit a pressure plate below, activating a piston  

Door system to open the door to the temple.  You then are judged by the face of notch,   randomly either giving you loads of treasure, or  dropping you to your death below. The best thing   about the temple of notch is that it was one  of the first popular maps to feature a large  

Amount of redstone functionality, as redstone  was still in its infancy at the time. Also,   while it was probably the least popular of the  three major minecraft urban legends, there was   a myth floating around that you could find the  temple of notch hidden in your minecraft world.  

This myth began alongside the herobrine  and Aether myths. Of course it wasn’t true   along with the other two, but it brings me a  wave of warm nostalgia juice thinking about   that. The temple of notch will forever  stand as a monument to minecraft maps,  

And the game as a whole. The much,  much better Mt Rushmore if you will. When you discuss minigames or maps that pioneered  the way for old, up and coming minecraft servers,   you can’t talk about the topic without mentioning  the dropper. The original dropper map was released  

In july of 2012 for minecraft 1.2. The concept  of the dropper was incredibly simple – you free   fall while avoiding obstacles to make it to the  bottom of the level. If you hit an obstacle,   you died of fall damage and were reset to  the beginning of the level you were on. The  

Original dropper map featured 16 levels, with  mindblowingly good builds along the way for the   time. I will never forget falling through the  massive kitchen, or seeing the giant skeleton.   It was just such a simple yet creative concept  that was so addicting and cathartic to play. I  

Mentioned that it paved the way for old servers  because the developers made it super easy to add   to your minecraft server, and it was one of the  original catalysts for minigame based servers   as we know them today. I mean, you can literally  still play a version of the dropper on hypixel,  

And it is still super popular and fun. Like  most of the maps on this list, the dropper   presented yet another different way of playing  the game, and expanded the sandbox even further. Super quick interruption, and I really don’t want  to be THAT youtuber, but consistently over 90%  

Of you are not subscribed to the channel. So if  you’re enjoying this journey through historical   minecraft maps, subscribe if you’re new to the  channel. It’s free, and if you end up getting   irrationally angry at seeing my face pop up on  your feed, you can freely undo your subscription at any time.

Also, leave a comment below letting me know your  all time favorite minecraft map, or any stories   and memories you have from the maps i’ve listed!  Okay, sorry to interrupt, back to the video! What comes to mind when you think of  the most timeless Minecraft map? Or a  

Map that has been modified and twisted into  a bazillion different variations? For me,   the answer to both of those questions is  classic skyblock. Released in late 2011,   the classic skyblock challenge is a play  on the survival island genre of maps,  

Where you start on a tiny island floating in  the void with extremely limited materials. So,   screw the rule from survival island of not being  able to leave the island, in skyblock, you leave,   you DIE. There was one tree and one chest, and in the chest  

You were given the materials to make a simple  cobblestone generator. I’ll never forget the first   time i tried skyblock, not knowing how things  worked, and I made obsidian immediately. Yeah,   we’ve all been there. Using the cobblestone, you  could expand the floating island, and reach other  

Islands that have blocks and items unobtainable on  the initial one. It was an even harder version of   survival island, and was a refreshingly difficult  grind and challenge. Also, there was a massive   community forming around skyblock, thanks to the  many, many youtubers trying their hands at a let’s  

Play back in the day. What’s great about classic  skyblock in that sense, is many big youtubers’   first big break came from posting about skyblock  all those years ago. And like I said in the intro,   this played a huge hand in getting minecraft  onto more people’s minds as it trended on the  

Internet. Sidenote, we have to applaud Notch for  a second, he literally did not have to advertise   his game at all. The players did it for him. For  free. Best business model of all time. Anyway,   skyblock became so huge, that variants and  recreations became rampant. And skyblock today  

Is as popular as ever, with massive servers  like hypixel turning it into an entire game   within the game within the game. While the original map might  seem boring and dry nowadays, I recommend you   just give it a shot again. For old time’s sake.  You might be surprised how fun it still can be.

Speaking of old minecraft youtube, there have  been many iconic maps that were created over   the years by beloved longtime creators. One of,  if not THE most famous was DanTDM’s Lab. Now   one of the all time kings on youtube, back in  2014 Dan provided a charming, creative take on  

Minecraft youtube videos through his custom mod  adventure series. It was a combo of a fictional   story and a minecraft let’s play, two things  that hadn’t really been put together before.   He created the character Dr Trayaurus, which is  literally just a reskinned minecraft villager,  

Who became one of the most recognizable minecraft  fictional characters of all time. Dr Trayaurus   lived in this laboratory, where Dan began  most of his crazy adventures and videos in the world. It   became a beloved site by millions of viewers, and  something that a lot of people remember fondly.  

A mark of the beginning of something amazing.  So many people to this day comment about great   memories they have had from the custom mod  adventure series, and it’s truly wonderful   and inspiring to think how many lives it has  impacted. And it all began here. In this lab.

One of the other longtime minecraft  youtube kings, CaptainSparklez,   gets his spot on this list because of the  Fallen Kingdom music video series. In 2012,   CaptainSparklez, or Jordan Maron, released  a series of minecraft parody music videos,   beginning with a parody of coldplay’s viva la vida  called fallen kingdom. This was an incredibly high  

Level production at the time, and something that  had never really been seen before. The original   map used to create the music video was released  to the public, and became an icon in the minecraft   animation scene as well as everyone’s childhoods,  and thus, makes the list of famous maps. Which oh  

Yeah, we’ve been talking about the pioneers of  certain subsets of minecraft maps and minecraft   content – and jordan definitely gets the nod  for pioneering modern minecraft animation.   It’s actually mindblowing how nice it looks for  a 2012 video. Now, he’s made quite a few videos  

On the fallen kingdom concept over the years,  and even released a new music video and played   through an adventure map variant super recently.  There’s also a fallen kingdom SMP. So it doesn’t   REALLY fit the “lost to time” title, but in my  opinion, the original map definitely does. Yeah,  

Definitely gonna have the fallen kingdom song  once again stuck in my head for the next week. The last youtuber map to make this list is  a timeless classic – SkyGrid. Created by   once prominent minecraft youtuber sethbling  in may 2012, sky grid is a super eccentric  

Take on challenge survival maps. As the name  suggests, it’s a large gathering of different   1×1 block islands littering the minecraft  world in a gridlike pattern, suspended in   the void. There are no set challenges, seth  left it up to you to decide what to do in sky  

Grid. This is probably the least famous of  the bunch i’ve talked about in this video,   but it still holds a special place in my heart,  as it was one of the first custom survival maps   i personally played after survival island. Still,  there were some iconic series that came out of it,  

Featuring vintage Ali A and Vikkstar. I know I’m  entirely beating a dead horse when I say this again,   but it really did provide a new concept  to minecraft challenge maps. It’s similar   to skyblock, yet way more challenging and  punishing of mistakes. One could also argue  

It inspired even more difficult challenges of  minecraft in today’s age, like the one block   challenge – surviving on literally one minecraft  block. All in all, sky grid definitely left its   mark on the early days of minecraft mapping and  youtube, but has since faded as the years go by.

Minecraft java isn’t the only place for nostalgia  trips. This one goes out to all my console homies:   the xbox 360 tutorial map. Nowadays, I play PC java  edition pretty much exclusively, but   I actually did play the xbox 360 version quite  extensively when it came out. I’ll never forget  

When I borrowed my older sister’s credit card  to buy it on my Xbox. I think I still owe her the $20 to   this day actually, sorry sis. I’ll get around  to it eventually. But anyways, the point is,  

The xbox 360 tutorial level sits in a fond part of  my and many others’ brain’s nostalgia center. What   you’re seeing on screen is a java edition remake  of the map, which i’ve linked in the description  

If you want to check it out. The tutorial level  gives you instructions on how to play the game   with a controller, and guides you through a  prebuilt world, which is chock full of charming   little tidbits. The reason this map  

Hits home for so many people is that it was likely  the first time you booted up the game on console   after your parents gifted it to you, or a gift from a relative  or family friend for your birthday or a holiday,  

Or you saved up enough lawn mowing money to  buy it yourself. That feeling of happiness   and dopamine of playing for the first time.  That feeling that is hard to come by these days,   even when discovering a new game. It’s cliche, but  man, it really did just hit different back then.

And last but certainly not least, Herobrine’s  mansion. The legend of herobrine is known even   beyond the minecraft community, and is arguably  the most popular urban legend in gaming of all   time. (but shoutout to bigfoot in gta san andreas, i’m  still a believer). Herobrine’s mansion  

Was an absolute legendary build on the super early  days of the hypixel server in 2012. It is an epic   co op adventure map, featuring boss fights,  custom monsters, unique items and textures,   and of course, the legendary herobrine. It is  considered the grandfather of adventure maps,  

Not because it was the first or anything,  because it wasn’t by a long shot, but it raised   the standard for adventure maps SO high  almost immediately. It still stands as one of,   if not the best adventure maps ever made. The  fact that it was made for co op play meant many  

Young people were joining together to defeat the all of challenges it presented. An online community was   building around this map, and old friendships  and comradery were forming. Of course for us   nostalgia junkies, this is the literal blueprint  of feeling nostalgic over a moment in the past.  

Remembering the good times of jumping into a skype  call *skype music plays* to play herobrine’s mansion after school. A   simpler time. When the only responsibility  was planning for the next boss fight. If you made it this far, thank you so much. If  you enjoyed this nostalgic minecraft map video,  

Leave a like and let me know. Leave a  comment with your thoughts and any other   maps you think deserve to be on this list.  Subscribe if you’re brand new around here,   and want to see more videos just like this one  in the future. I genuinely appreciate your  

Existence and your time. I love you all so so  very much, and I’ll see you, in the next one.