Back up first. Copy your whole world folder somewhere safe before replacing anything. This tool only reads the file you give it, but a backup costs nothing.
Your file never leaves your computer. Everything runs in your browser; this page makes no network requests with your file.
Hardcore death is not deletion. The world, your builds and your chests are all still there; Minecraft just locks the save in Spectator mode so you can look but never play.
When you die in a hardcore world, the death screen offers only Spectate World or returning to the title. Behind the scenes the game keeps the world's hardcore flag on and switches the gamemode to Spectator (mode 3). Every time you reopen the world after that, you load as a ghost: free camera, no block interaction, no inventory, no way back. Nothing is deleted and nothing is corrupted; the save is simply flagged as finished.
Because the lock is just data in a file, it is completely reversible. The tool above reads that file, flips the relevant values, and hands you back a save that loads in Survival or Creative as if the death never ended the run.
Every Java Edition world stores its settings in level.dat, a small gzip-compressed NBT file in the world folder. Three values inside it control the hardcore lock, and they are the only things this tool changes:
Revive in Survival sets all three to normal play (hardcore 0, both gamemodes 0). Revive but stay Hardcore keeps hardcore at 1 and only resets the gamemodes to Survival, so the one-life rule applies to your second chance too. Convert to Creative sets hardcore to 0 and both gamemodes to 1. Every other byte in the file, from your seed to your inventory, is written back exactly as it was read.
Nothing this tool does is secret. If you would rather make the same edit yourself with an NBT editor such as NBTExplorer, here is the full procedure:
1. Close Minecraft completely, then copy your world folder somewhere safe as a backup.
2. Open level.dat from the world folder in your NBT editor. It opens to a single compound named Data.
3. Set the hardcore byte to 0 to turn hardcore off, or leave it at 1 to keep hardcore rules.
4. Set GameType to 0 for Survival or 1 for Creative, and do the same for playerGameType inside the Player compound.
5. Save the file and launch the game. The world loads playable again.
Drop your world's level.dat into the tool above and pick a revive option. The tool flips the hardcore flag and gamemode values stored in the file and gives you a fixed level.dat to download. Rename the original to level.dat.backup, put the new file in its place, and the world opens alive in Survival or Creative.
Yes. Hardcore is not enforced by code you have to patch; it is a couple of values saved in your world's level.dat file. This tool edits those values directly, so it works on completely vanilla Minecraft Java Edition with no mods, no cheats enabled and nothing installed.
Your file never leaves your computer. The page reads, edits and re-saves the level.dat entirely in your browser and makes no network requests with your file. Only the few bytes that store the hardcore flag and gamemodes change; everything else in the file is preserved byte for byte. Keep the original as level.dat.backup and you can undo it at any time.
Yes. The Revive but stay Hardcore option puts your player back in Survival while leaving the hardcore flag set, so you keep the hardcore hearts and the one-life stakes. Just remember that your next death is final again.
This tool covers singleplayer worlds. On a server, each player's gamemode lives in separate playerdata files rather than in level.dat, so editing level.dat alone will not revive anyone. Use the /gamemode survival command from the server console or an operator account instead.
On a server instead? Or browse more Minecraft tools:
