Mincraft's recent Nether update brought a long list of changes and new content to Mojang Studios' ever-popular sandbox game. As the name suggests, most of the update is focused on the Nether, giving it a variety of fresh locations, blocks, and mobs for players to discover. One of these new blocks is crying obsidian, which has a useful purpose for those that want to explore this dangerous dimension.
Crying obsidian is actually a returning block, and was available for a brief period of time during the beta stages of Minecraft's development. Appearance-wise, the block is very similar to regular obsidian, with an added glow and a purple particle effect.
How to Get Crying Obsidian
There are a few ways of obtaining crying obsidian. The first is by looking for ruined portals, which can appear in both the Overworld and the Nether. Some of the usual obsidian blocks will be replaced with this new variant, and can be mined with a diamond pickaxe or better.
Crying obsidian can also be found in bastion remnants, structures that now appear throughout the Nether. Chests within these structures have a small chance of containing crying obsidian, so keep raiding chests and you should manage to find a few blocks.
The final way involves bartering with piglins, another recent addition to Minecraft. Piglins love gold, so if you're wearing at least one piece of armor made of the stuff they'll leave you alone. If you give piglins gold ingots, they'll throw you items in return. One of these items is crying obsidian, making this a decent way to farm for the block without searching the Nether.
How to Use Crying Obsidian
Obviously you can place blocks of crying obsidian if you want a cool glowing block for decoration, but its main use is for crafting respawn anchors. These require three glowstone blocks and six crying obsidian, and serve as a counterpart to beds. Whereas beds would allow you to respawn in the Overworld on death, respawn anchors only work in the Nether instead. Just make sure to charge it up with glowstone, as an uncharged respawn anchor will do nothing and you'll be out of luck if you die.