Two thin concentric circles of life giving earth intersect beneath your feet and rise high into the sky. Gravity is not your friend. Your friends are not your friends. You’re all alone here, against the elements and the bending earth.

The Wheel of Misfortune is a fickle minecraft survival map, it might reward you or it might destroy all your hopes and dreams in a single instant. Sort of like life, but with the option to re-extract the file and run the game from the beginning again. The challenge is in building structures that will not only keep you safe, but allow you to access all the structures that hover in the void, so close and yet so far.

Are there challenges? Of course there are, so those of you who don’t feel a map is complete unless someone is daring you to make a stack of bricks will have that particular itch scratched in totality. A little bit sky island, a little bit MC Escher painting, Wheel of Misfortune will stretch your minecraft survival skills to their very limits and beyond.

Download Wheel of Misfortune, Minecraft Survival Map!

Biomes. In Cubes. Cubic biomes. That’s a pretty apt summary of this minecraft survival map. Though there are many like it, there aren’t many that are quite as unexpectedly dangerous. Spawners, spawners everywhere!

There’s an awful lot of bridge building ahead for the avid minecraft player, also an awful lot of cultivation and an awful lot of spawner destroying. So many spawners. Although the premise of the map is simple, there’s actually rather a lot of work involved in completing the challenges. Although you’re really supposed to play the map on easy mode or higher, it’s still quite a fun map to play on peaceful.

What’s most enjoyable about The Cubes is the fact that each little cube must be cultivated and tamed. Stone must be mined, wood must be harvested and trees replanted. Then one is off to another cube to harvest some handy cacti and dig some sand for more glass.

For a good solid minecraft survival experience with some sky island-esqe twists, why not download The Cubes, minecraft survival map!

I don’t know about you, but I like my minecraft survival maps sparse. I like them hot and dry. I want to feel my lips crack as my tongue swells with dehydration. From the moment I spawned in Stonecraft, I knew I was in for a challenge. Like me, you’ll be greeted with an almost alien landscape where sand and stone reign supreme. The only green you’ll find hereabouts are the cacti and well, they ain’t exactly good eating now, are they?

Perhaps you’re hoping for a starting chest to get your adventure off on the right foot. Well think again partner, there are a couple of chests, but they don’t contain much in the way of survival supplies – unless you reckon chewing the leather pants will provide you with nutrition.

Of course, if you happen to turn around from the spawn point, you’ll spot a small oasis of grass in the middle of the big island. That means you’ve got enough dirt to fill your belly for a month – or until the first livestock magically spawns, just the way real animals don’t.

If you play this map on anything other than peaceful, you’re going to have a hard time. And don’t even begin to think about changing your game mode to creative and hacking yourself some enchanted diamond armor in, because cheats have been disabled. You have to do this the old fashioned way, crying and swearing whilst being exploded at regular intervals.

Download Stone Craft 2 Minecraft Survival Map!

As an orphaned victim of a shipwreck, you must climb the sheer cliffs of the inhospitable island you find yourself marooned upon. There are no tropical island coves or sandy beaches for you, just a climb straight up into the great unknown. This is a simple minecraft survival map set in a landscape that is lush, but not at all forgiving. One slip and you’ll find yourself at the wrong end of a long fall.

What adventures will come when you descend into the valley below? Only time will tell. One thing is for certain – both danger and reward lurk beneath the green grass and trees are not always what they seem. Are you brave enough, bold adventurer? Will you make this island your home, plumb its depths and create a place where sheep graze on wide pastures? Or will you fall prey to the horrors of the end?

Download The Geodown Minecraft Survival Adventure Map

We come now to the ninth popular minecraft survival map of all time according to me and my statistics (generated by pig men scientists of the highest order). Number nine is Sky Pyramid, a sky survival minecraft map in which you float in the sky and try to survive. Yes, it is quite a bit like SkyBlock (which appears quite a bit further up the Top 10 countdown) but it has some unique points and advantages which I will now list.

Sky Pyramid gives you a lot more space to explore and a lot more grass and dirt to work with than SkyBlock, which is pretty much a cobblestone generator of a map. There I said it. Sky Pyramid also benefits from knowledge of cobblestone generation techniques, but you could probably get away without them if you were prepared to work exclusively with wood and wood derived tools.

Unlike Sky Block, which hates you and secretly wants you to fail, Sky Pyramid loves you. It is generous with its bounty. Ultimately it’s just another island in the sky, but it’s an island in the sky where animals will frolic and waters will fall and where you can make your own isolated dreams come true.

Download Sky Pyramid Minecraft Sky Survival Map