04 Jun 2019
You know, I’ve always enjoyed Minecraft. I don’t play often, but every now and then the mood strikes me to fire up the game (albeit, on PC these days) and just jump into a world and build Forts. I like Forts – they’re very versatile and useful defensive fortifications.
In Minecraft you don’t need a cohort of Roman Legionnaires to throw up something decent in half-an-hour or so, and with the recently announced Minecraft Earth, I can spread my defensive network across the planet via the power of augmented reality. You’re welcome.
Apple’s Worldwide Developer Conference was last night and Mojang/Microsoft used that as a vessel for the first live gameplay demonstration of the new AR game in action. It makes sense, considering Apple were all about their new ARKit 3 toolbox, which we imagine Minecraft Earth will be relying heavily on for iOS. Apples new AR support will come with a feature called People Occlusion, which allows AR content to handle the presence of a real-person within the virtual world – this will be something unique to the Apple’s version of the game.
Here’s a video of the main presentation:
If you already play and enjoy Minecraft, even the mobile versions, this should be an engaging new way to experience the game. I suspect the minutia of building and destruction may be a bit clunkier with the Pokémon GO style design, but resource collection works by walking around your local environment and visiting key locations. Once you have what you need, the building engine should be as free-form as it is in the main game. What we don’t know at the moment is the specifics of how you summon your designs to the world, and where they can be placed.
Minecraft Earth is so far set to be a free-to-play experience, with a closed beta scheduled for later this summer on both iOS and Android.