The First City is one of the best story mods ever made for Minecraft. Built by Refresh Studios (a team including Rat, iChun, and YungNickYoung), this mod turns a single playthrough into an unforgettable adventure. It works in both singleplayer and multiplayer, and you only need to play it once to experience the full story.
What is The First City Mod?
The mod repurposes Minecraft’s Ancient City portal frame and turns it into the start of an epic journey. After collecting a warden key and activating the portal, you get pulled into a mysterious new dimension filled with puzzles, combat challenges, and boss fights. The story culminates in a final battle against “The Eye” and takes you through multiple unique worlds.
How to Play: Step-by-Step
Starting Your Adventure
Find an Ancient City biome in your world. You’ll see the vanilla portal frame in the center, but with the mod installed, a new pedestal appears in front of it. Kill some wardens to get a warden key, then insert it into the pedestal to activate the portal. Watch as creepy tentacles pull you into The First City dimension.
The First City Dimension
You’ll arrive in a massive dimension with interconnected bridges spanning between two walls. The bridges are broken in places, so watch your step or you’ll fall to your death. As you traverse, you’ll spot a dark sphere called “The Eye” on the horizon. Wardens patrol the area, so stay sharp.
Eventually you’ll find a huge cannon. Right-click to enter, use your movement keys to aim, and hold spacebar to fire a laser beam. Your goal is to destroy the building blocking The Eye, then hit The Eye itself to activate a cutscene.
Inside The Eye
The cutscene pulls you and the cannon pieces into The Eye, and you end up in a new dimension called “Inside The Eye.” You spawn on a central island where you’ll need to reassemble the laser cannon using three pieces scattered across three challenge islands.
Challenge 1: Fire Island
Bring a bow. The island is packed with fire-spitting enemies. Use steam vents to levitate up between islands until you reach the highest point and grab the first cannon piece.
Challenge 2: Laser Gate Island
Spider-like mobs guard the entrance behind laser beams. Go left or right to find boost pods that let you jump to the next island. Disable two towers by right-clicking them to open the gate and grab the second piece.
Challenge 3: Crystal Mage Boss
Defeat the Crystal Mage, who summons mini soldiers to help him. Once he’s down, grab the third cannon piece.
The Final Battle
Return to the central island and assemble all three pieces into a complete laser cannon. Enter the cannon, aim at The Eye’s pupil, and fire. The screen flashes white and you’re transported to a credits dimension. Enter the final portal to get sent back to your spawn in the overworld.
Installation Instructions
First, make sure you have a mod loader installed. This mod works with Fabric for Minecraft 1.19.3. If you don’t have Fabric installed yet, download it from the official Fabric website and follow their installation steps.
Once Fabric is ready, download The First City mod file below. Navigate to your Minecraft folder (usually .minecraft), open the mods folder, and drop the downloaded .jar file inside. Launch Minecraft with the Fabric profile and you’re done.
Download The First City Mod
Minecraft 1.19.3 (Fabric)
Version Compatibility
This mod is currently available for Minecraft 1.19.3 using Fabric. Check back for updates if you’re running a different Minecraft version. The mod was designed specifically for 1.19.3, so using other versions may cause compatibility issues.