What are the deep dark cities, and what is the warden guarding in Minecraft 1.19?

Ever since the warden was introduced at Minecraft Live, the Minecraft community all over the world has been eagerly waiting for it to be added to the game. This new mob will be so strong that it would kill you even if you have full netherite gear on you, and the devs even confirmed that it is going to have more health than the Ender Dragon!

But what is this Warden, and why was it delayed so many times? What is Mojang up to? This article will deep-dive into the quasi-lore that Minecraft has and build upon it using some popular theories combined with the information that the devs keep giving us on Twitter.

This article will answer the popular question, WHAT IS THE WARDEN? And what are these deep dark cities that this mob is so keen on preserving, to the point that it literally kills you in 1-2 hits.

Besides that, the name Warden literally means someone who is guarding something. Is the Warden guarding something in the deep dark? We already know that some new loot will be available in the deep dark, so is the mystery solved? No! The devs have explicitly mentioned that the Warden isn’t a guardian; it is more like a natural disaster. 

This information will help us understand what the Warden actually is!

Deep Dark Cities Explained

Before we understand the Warden, let’s know the place it inhabits. As evolution has shown us, living beings tend to adapt to the environment they inhabit, so to understand where the Warden comes from and what it is doing there in the first place, let’s understand the deep dark cities.

Many conflicting theories have emerged from the community ever since these cities were first shown off. If kingbdogz - a Minecraft dev - is to be believed, the deep dark cities will be huge and have one centerpiece in between; what this centerpiece is, we don’t know yet, but we have some clues that indicate it might be some kind of a temple.

As you can see in these images of the deep dark, the place is very eerie. It has an abandoned vibe to it and has many sculk blocks spreading across the cities. The deep dark was initially going to be a cave, but the devs have turned into a city. But who built this?

Ancient civilization theory

This is the most popular theory regarding deep dark cities. The cities were built by some ancient civilization that dug underground and reached bedrock. They started to build cities across the caves. But the threat of hostile mobs loomed over them, so they created a system to alarm them about hostile creatures.

These systems are none other than the sculk blocks that we’ve seen many times at this point. 

Eventually, these people advanced enough to build a robot-like creature, the warden. But, the sculk got out of control and ended up wiping out the entire civilization by consuming the people. This ties into the lore of sculk nicely, as sculk spreads when mobs die.

The sculk also infected the warden, which now acts as a guardian to the sculk so that people like you, the player, don’t eradicate it from the world. So basically, the sculk is a giant organism that is just trying to survive. Just like parasites find a host, these sculk infested the warden to do their bidding.

This theory seems plausible, but the devs have explicitly mentioned that the warden isn’t a robot but a “natural disaster”. But as we know, the devs might be trying to keep this a mystery, and maybe we figured it out too soon; hence they deny it.

Regardless of this deep dark theory being true or not, we know one thing: Minecraft doesn't have any solid lore. It isn’t a rigid game. Everyone can interpret the lore as they want, so I don’t think the devs will ever deny or accept any theory as fact.

Warden Explained

The Warden is a mob as big if not larger in size than the iron Golem. It is dark green in color and has a color palette similar to the end dimension. It is also blind, but can hear and smell you. 

The chest of this mob has some really eerie imagery. It seems like souls are trapped in his chest, and his heart also pounds really loudly; we can actually hear this pounding every time it becomes aware of our presence overall; it is a terrifying mob and might have a health of 500 HP!

It emerges from the ground when it hears your footsteps and gets a lot of help from the sculk sensors, allowing it to navigate to your location. The warden has a tremendous amount of health and also packs a punch.

It has been confirmed that the Warden might kill you in 1-2 hits even if you have full netherite gear, which is the strongest armor that you can get in Minecraft. This is everything we know about the warden so far, now let’s look at what the theories say about the Warden’s origins and more!

End update theory!

The Minecraft devs have made it clear that they won’t add anything new to the game until they update every pre-existing Minecraft feature. The ocean update revamped the oceans, the caves and cliffs update revamped the overworld, the nether update revamped the nether, and the wild update will take care of the existing biomes.

Only one part of this game remains updated at this point, and that is the end dimension. The end dimension is in dire need of an update, it still looks like something from the early 2010s, and the other parts of Minecraft, like the ocean and the nether, are way better at this point in time.

So maybe the rollout of this end update has already begun in the form of these deep dark cities and the Warden.

Is it a coincidence that the Warden and the sculk blocks have colors similar to the end dimension? It might be, but it might also be a hint towards what's coming. 

The underground, or the caves, have already been updated. But you know what hasn’t been updated? The dungeon where the end portal lies still is untouched. Maybe the dungeon will now be found in the deep dark cities, and perhaps something is guarding it, something big and powerful, like the Warden!

The devs named this mob the Warden. It might be here to protect the players from entering the end portal or the new and revamped dungeon.

What else would the Warden guard? We don’t have many exclusive items in the game, so what is the Warden guarding then? The end portal and its dungeon are viable candidates. This new dungeon can be harder and have unique traps, unlike the one we have now.

The sculk might be leaking from the end dimension, and maybe that’s why their colors match so much. Reaching the end will take a lot of effort in the end update, and when you get there, it will be worth it, and the fight will be worth it too.

This theory is very out there, and a lot of things will have to go right for this theory to actually become a reality, but that's why it’s called a theory! And we hope you enjoyed this post; make sure to check out some other content on our site; we love to post about topics similar to this.

Check out our other pages! : How to Conquer Ancient Cities in Minecraft 1.19