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Minecraft Earth will shut down in June

Published January 5, 2021

Throughout 2019, Microsoft experimented with building a real-world, augmented reality Minecraft game designed in the same vein as Pokémon GO. Called Minecraft Earth, they finally opened it up to everyone in November of 2019.

In just a few months, it’ll shut down and all player data will be deleted.

So what happened? Writes the Minecraft Earth team:

Minecraft Earth was designed around free movement and collaborative play – two things that have become near impossible in the current global situation. As a result, we have made the difficult decision to re-allocate our resources to other areas that provide value to the Minecraft community and to end support for Minecraft Earth in June 2021.

In other words: This game just isn’t going to work in a pandemic. Pokémon GO might be doing just fine thanks to a strong foundation of super-dedicated players and a steady stream of curious newcomers, but it’d be pretty damned hard to go from zero to 60 with a real-world game when everyone is supposed to be staying at home.

Minecraft Earth is live, so get tapping

What happens next:

  • The team is releasing one final patch that removes all in-app purchases and makes all in-game mechanics easier/faster to make the most of any remaining play time.
  • On June 30th, the game shuts down. Even if you’ve got it installed already, it’ll stop working.
  • On July 1st, they’re deleting all player data.
  • Anyone who has spent any money in Minecraft Earth is getting a free copy of Minecraft Bedrock version, and players who have unused paid Minecraft Earth rubies will get an unspecified amount of Minecoins that’ll work in Minecraft-proper’s marketplace.

It’s a disappointing end to what was really a pretty cool concept — but if they’re announcing its shutdown barely a year after launch, the data probably suggest there’s not much else they can do.

How Niantic evolved Pokémon GO for the year no one could go anywhere

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Minecraft Earth is live, so get tapping

Published November 12, 2019

Microsoft’s big experiment in real-world augmented reality gaming, Minecraft Earth, is live now for players in North America, the U.K. and a number of other areas. The pocket-size AR game lets you collect blocks and critters wherever you go, undertake little adventures with friends and, of course, build sweet castles.

I played an early version of Minecraft Earth earlier this year, and found it entertaining and the AR aspect surprisingly seamless. The gameplay many were first introduced to in Pokémon GO is adapted here in a more creative and collaborative way.

You still walk around your neighborhood, rendered in this case charmingly like a Minecraft world, and tap little icons that pop up around your character. These may be blocks you can use to build, animals you can collect or events like combat encounters that you can do alone or with friends for rewards.

Ultimately all this is in service of building stuff, which you do on “build plates” of various sizes. These you place in AR mode on a flat surface, which they lock onto, letting you move around freely to edit and play with them. This sounded like it could be fussy or buggy when I first heard about it, but actually doing it was smooth and easy. It’s easy to “zoom in” to edit a structure by just moving your phone closer, and multiple people can play with the same blocks and plate at the same time.

Once you’ve put together something fun, you can take it to an outdoor location and have it represented at essentially “real” size, so you can walk around the interior of your castle or dungeon. Of course, you can’t climb steps, because they’re not real, but the other aspects work as expected: you can manipulate doors and other items, breed cave chickens and generally enjoy yourself.

The game is definitely more open-ended than the collection-focused Pokémon GO and Harry Potter: Wizards Unite. Whether that proves to be to its benefit or detriment when it comes to appeal and lasting power remains to be seen — but one thing is for sure: People love Minecraft and they’re going to want to at least try this out.

And now they can, if they’re in one of the following countries — with others coming throughout the holiday season:

  • United States
  • United Kingdom
  • Canada
  • South Korea
  • Philippines
  • Sweden
  • Mexico
  • Australia
  • New Zealand
  • Iceland

You can download Minecraft Earth for iOS here and for Android here.

 

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Minecraft Earth closed beta goes live on Android in five cities

Published August 30, 2019

When the beta for Minecraft Earth (think the building concepts of Minecraft mashed up with the real-world wandering/augmented reality/collecting concepts of Pokémon GO) first went live back in July, it did so with a catch or two: it only worked on iOS, and only players in Seattle or London were actually able to play.

The beta pool is expanding dramatically this morning, with players on Android finally being invited to jump in. Meanwhile, the region locks have expanded over the past few weeks to include Tokyo, Stockholm and Mexico City (along with Seattle and London).

Curiously, those new Android users will immediately get access to a fledgling feature that iOS players haven’t: the in-game currency, rubies. Rubies can be earned or bought, and allow players to buy more build plates upon which they can piece together their blocky creations. In a blog post on the beta expansion, the company promises that any rubies acquired during the beta will follow the player into the eventual public release, and that iOS support for rubies is coming “very soon.”

Alas, you can’t just hop in the Google Play store, hit download and get to building. It’s still a closed beta, so you’ll have to sign up and be invited in before you’ll be able to start.

We went hands-on with an early build of Minecraft Earth right after it was announced — check out our early impressions here.

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