‘Minecraft’ celebrates 10th-year anniversary with AR game ‘Minecraft Earth’

Minecraft is celebrating its 10th year in existence. To commemorate that, its creators launched its first augmented reality mobile game, Minecraft Earth. This free-to-play game is available on both iOS and Android. With the use of Microsoft technology like Azure Spatial Anchors tracking and PlayFab integration, this brings the Minecraft game to life—at least in an AR space.

You can expect to find a lot of things as you explore and play the game. As you go around, you’ll find small clusters of blocks, chests, or mobs called Tappables. There will also be Adventures or small pieces of the Minecraft world but playable in life-size AR. To progress in the game, you need to collect resources, fight mobs, and gain experience points.

The game also features many of the Vanilla Minecraft mobs that players of the game are already familiar with. You can discover and collect unique variants as well and use these to populate builds, gather resources, and take on nearby challenges. There are things called Build Plates that can be built on small, tabletop-sized environments and be interacted with from above. You can place these Build Plates on the ground to see your creations outside in life-size scale. Anyone with an AR-capable smartphone can join in on the fun, allowing for collaborative multiplayer experience.

If you want to find out more, head over to minecraft.net/earth.