All the Mods 9 Sky: When Kitchen Sink Meets Skyblock
You know the drill. You’ve been playing a kitchen sink modpack for weeks, and suddenly you think: “What if I did all this, but with only a void and one tree?” That’s the exact itch ATM9 Sky scratches.
All the Mods 9 was already a massive sandbox. Now imagine that same freedom, but stripped down to a single island and a skyblock challenge. It’s not a new idea, but it’s done with the same polish and breadth that makes ATM9 a staple in the modded Minecraft community.
What It Does
ATM9 Sky is a skyblock version of the already popular All the Mods 9 modpack. Instead of a sprawling overworld, you start on a small floating island with minimal resources. Your goal is the same as any skyblock: expand, automate, and eventually build a self sustaining base.
The twist? This isn’t a “light” skyblock. It pulls in the full ATM9 mod list (which is enormous) and adapts it to the void. You get quests, custom recipes, and adjusted progression so that everything works in a closed ecosystem. Think Create machines, Mekanism reactors, and Applied Energistics storage — all in the sky.
Why It’s Cool
The real win here is how they rebalanced the kitchen sink modlist for skyblock. Normally, skyblock modpacks cut out most mods or make them pointless. ATM9 Sky does the opposite: it keeps the chaos but forces you to earn it.
Some standout bits:
- Custom progression — many recipes are tweaked so you can’t just skip to endgame with a single cobble gen. You have to chain together multiple mods to get basic resources.
- Skyblock quests — the quest book guides you from dirt to deep space, but it doesn’t hold your hand. It’s more “here’s the next step” than “here’s the answer”.
- Performance — the pack is optimized for skyblock play. Fewer chunks to load means better frames, even with all those mods running.
- Community recipes — the GitHub repo shows active development, with custom datapacks and script tweaks that the community submits. It feels alive.
For devs, this is a great example of how to take an existing monolithic modpack and repurpose it for a constrained game mode without breaking the original vision.
How to Try It
You have two options:
- CurseForge launcher — search for “All the Mods 9 – Sky” and install. It’s a standard modpack install.
- GitHub release — grab the zip from the repository and drop it into your CurseForge or Prism launcher manually.
You’ll need Minecraft 1.20.1 and Java 17+. Once installed, generate a new world and pick the “All the Mods 9 – Sky” world type.
Note: This is not the same as ATM9 to the Sky (which is an addon). This is the standalone skyblock pack, fully self contained.
Final Thoughts
If you’ve ever burned out on regular ATM9 and thought “I wish I had to work for this gear,” this is your pack. It’s not brutally hard, but it respects your time. The progression feels earned, and the skyblock constraint makes each milestone more satisfying.
For modpack developers, it’s worth studying how they handled recipe overrides and forced cross mod interaction. That’s the kind of design that turns a good pack into a great one.
Give it a shot. You might find yourself building that Mekanism fusion reactor in the void sooner than you think.
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