What Is Minecraft?

Minecraft is a 2011 sandbox game developed and published by the Swedish video game developer Mojang Studios. Originally created by Markus "Notch" Persson using the Java programming language, the first public alpha build was released on 17 May 2009. The game was continuously developed from then on, receiving a full release on 18 November 2011. Afterwards, Persson left Mojang and gave Jens "Jeb" Bergensten control over development. In the years since its release, it has been ported to several platforms, including smartphones, tablets, and various video game consoles. In 2014, Mojang and the Minecraft intellectual property were purchased by Microsoft for US$2.5 billion.

In Minecraft, players explore a procedurally generated, three-dimensional world with virtually infinite terrain made up of voxels. Players can discover and extract raw materials, craft tools and items, and build structures, earthworks, and machines. Depending on their chosen game mode, players can fight hostile mobs, as well as cooperate with or compete against other players in multiplayer. The game has two main modes: survival mode, where players must acquire resources to survive, and creative mode, where players have unlimited resources and the ability to fly. Three more game modes exist: the spectator mode allows players to spectate others, the adventure mode forbids players from mining blocks, and the hardcore mode plays identically to survival mode on hard difficulty but features permadeath. The game's large community offers a wide variety of user-generated content, such as modifications, servers, skins, texture packs, and custom maps, which add new game mechanics and possibilities. Speedrunning is another popular community activity.

Minecraft is the best-selling video game of all time, with over 350 million copies sold and nearly 170 million monthly active players as of 2025. In addition, it has received critical acclaim, winning several awards and being cited as one of the greatest video games of all time; social media, parodies, adaptations, merchandise, and the annual Minecon conventions have played prominent roles in popularizing the game. Minecraft has been used in educational environments to teach chemistry, computer-aided design, and computer science. The game spawned a franchise, which includes several spin-off games including Minecraft: Story Mode, Minecraft Earth, Minecraft Dungeons, and Minecraft Legends. A live-action film adaptation, titled A Minecraft Movie, was released in theatres on 4 April 2025.

Gameplay

Minecraft is a 3D sandbox video game that has no required goals to accomplish, allowing players a large amount of freedom in choosing how to play the game.[3] The game also features an optional achievement system.[4] Gameplay is in the first-person perspective by default, but players have the option of a second and third-person perspective.[5] The game world is composed of rough 3D objects—mainly cubes, referred to as blocks—representing various materials, such as dirt, stone, ores, tree trunks, water, and lava. The core gameplay revolves around picking up and placing these objects. These blocks are arranged in a 3D grid, while players can move freely around the world. Players can break, or mine, blocks and then place them elsewhere, enabling them to build things.[6] The game also contains a material called redstone, which can be used to make primitive mechanical devices, electrical circuits, and logic gates, allowing for the construction of many complex systems.[7][8] Comparatively, the game's physics system has been described as unrealistic, with nearly all blocks unaffected by gravity.[9]

An example of Minecraft's procedurally generated terrain, including a village and the default skin Steve

Players can also craft a wide variety of items, such as armor, which mitigates damage from attacks; weapons (such as swords or axes), which allows monsters and animals to be killed more easily; and tools (such as pickaxes or shovels), which break certain types of blocks more quickly. Some items have multiple tiers depending on the material used to craft them, with higher-tier items being more effective and durable. They may also freely construct helpful blocks—such as furnaces which can cook food and smelt ores,[10] and torches that produce light—or exchange items with a villager (NPC) through trading emeralds for different goods and vice versa.[11][12] The game has an inventory system, allowing players to carry a limited number of items.[13]

The game world is virtually infinite and procedurally generated as players explore it, using a map seed that is obtained from the system clock at the time of world creation (or manually specified by the player).[14][15][16] While there are limits on the world's verticality, Minecraft allows an infinitely large game world to be generated on the horizontal plane, though the player is limited to traversing up to 30 million blocks from the world's center.[17] The world is divided into biomes ranging from deserts to jungles to snowfields;[18][19] the terrain includes plains, mountains, forests, caves, and bodies of water or lava.[16] The in-game time system follows a day and night cycle, with one full cycle lasting for 20 real-time minutes.[20]

Some of Minecraft's monsters, displayed from left to right: a zombie, a spider, an enderman, a creeper, and a skeleton. All can spawn in the Overworld.

New players are given a randomly selected default character skin out of nine possibilities, including Steve or Alex,[21][22] but are able to create and upload their own skins.[23] Players encounter various mobs (short for mobile entities) including animals, villagers, and hostile creatures.[12][24] Passive mobs, such as cows, pigs, and chickens, can be hunted for food and crafting materials. They spawn in the daytime, while hostile mobs—including large spiders, witches, skeletons, and zombies—spawn during nighttime or in dark places such as caves.[25][26] Some hostile mobs, such as zombies, skeletons and drowned (underwater versions of zombies), burn under the sun if they have no headgear and are not standing in water.[27] Other creatures unique to Minecraft include the creeper (an exploding creature that sneaks up on the player) and the enderman (a creature with the ability to teleport as well as pick up and place blocks).[28] There are also variants of mobs that spawn in different conditions; for example, zombies have husk and drowned variants that spawn in deserts and oceans, respectively.[29]

Dimensions

Minecraft has two alternative dimensions besides the Overworld (the main world where the player spawns): the Nether and the End.[28]

The Nether

The Nether is a hell-like underworld dimension accessed via a player-built obsidian portal; newer versions of the game feature naturally generated damaged portals that the player can repair.[30] The Nether contains many unique resources and can be used to travel great distances in the Overworld, due to every block traveled in the Nether being equivalent to 8 blocks traveled in the Overworld.[31] Mobs that populate the Nether include shrieking, fireball-shooting ghasts, alongside anthropomorphic mobs called piglins and their zombified counterparts.[32] The piglins in particular have a bartering system, where players can give them gold ingots and receive items in return.[33] Structures known as Nether Fortresses generate in the Nether, containing unique mobs such as wither skeletons and blazes, which can drop blaze rods needed to access the End dimension.[34] The dimension also features bastion remnants, a structure that occasionally contains the netherite upgrade smithing template. This item is required to upgrade diamond equipment to netherite, the most durable material in the game.[35] The player can also choose to build an optional boss mob known as the Wither, using skulls obtained from wither skeletons and soul sand.[36][37]

The End

The End can be reached through an end portal, consisting of twelve end portal frames. End portals are found in underground structures in the Overworld known as strongholds. To find strongholds, players must craft eyes of ender using an ender pearl and blaze powder. Eyes of ender can then be thrown, traveling in the direction of the stronghold. Once the player reaches the stronghold, they can place eyes of ender into each portal frame to activate the end portal.[38] The dimension consists of islands floating in a dark, bottomless void. A boss enemy called the Ender Dragon guards the largest, central island.[39] Killing the dragon opens access to an exit portal, which, when entered, cues the game's ending credits and the End Poem, a roughly 1,500-word work written by Irish novelist Julian Gough,[40] which takes about nine minutes to scroll past,[41] is the game's only narrative text,[42] and the only text of significant length directed at the player.[43]: 10–12 At the conclusion of the credits, the player is teleported back to their respawn point and may continue the game indefinitely.[44] Players can also explore further regions of the End beyond the main island, which can harbor structures known as end cities or ships to find valuable loot as well.

Game modes

Survival mode

The crafting menu in Minecraft, showing the crafting recipe of a wooden sword as well as some other blocks and items in the player's inventory

In survival mode, players have to gather natural resources such as wood and stone found in the environment in order to craft certain blocks and items.[16] Depending on the difficulty, monsters spawn in darker areas outside a certain radius of the character, requiring players to build a shelter in order to survive at night.[16] The mode also has a health bar which is depleted by attacks from mobs, falls, drowning, falling into lava, suffocation, starvation, and other events. Players also have a hunger bar, which must be periodically refilled by eating food in-game unless the player is playing on peaceful difficulty.[45] If the hunger bar is empty, automatic healing stops and depletes. Health replenishes when players have a full hunger bar or continuously on peaceful.[45]

Upon losing all health, items in the players' inventories are dropped unless the game is reconfigured not to do so. Players then re-spawn at their spawn point, which by default is where players first spawn in the game and can be reset by sleeping in a bed or using a respawn anchor.[46][47] Dropped items can be recovered if players can reach them before they despawn after 5 minutes. Players may acquire experience points (commonly referred to as "xp" or "exp") to as by killing mobs and other players, mining, smelting ores, breeding animals, and cooking food.[48] Experience can then be spent on enchanting tools, armor and weapons. Enchanted items are generally more powerful, last longer, or have other special effects.[25]

The game features two more game modes based on survival, known as "hardcore mode" and "adventure mode". Hardcore mode plays identically to survival mode, but features permadeath, meaning players only have one life, forcing them to delete the world or explore it as a spectator after death.[49] Adventure mode was added to the game in a post-launch update,[50] and prevents the player from directly modifying the game's world. It was designed primarily for use in custom maps, allowing map designers to let players experience it as intended.[50][51]

Creative mode

In creative mode, players have access to an infinite number of nearly all resources and items in the game through the inventory menu and can place or mine them instantly.[52] Players can toggle the ability to fly freely around the game world at will, while their characters do not take any damage nor are affected by hunger.[53][54] The game mode helps players focus on building and creating projects of any size without disturbance.[52]

Multiplayer

Minecraft Realms

In 2013, Mojang announced Minecraft Realms, a server hosting service intended to enable players to run server multiplayer games easily and safely without having to set up their own.[60][61] Unlike a standard server, only invited players can join Realms servers, and these servers do not use IP addresses. Minecraft: Java Edition Realms server owners can invite up to twenty people to play on their server, with up to ten players online at a time. Minecraft Realms server owners can invite up to 3,000 people to play on their server, with up to ten players online at one time.[62] The Minecraft: Java Edition Realms servers do not support user-made plugins, but players can play custom Minecraft maps.[63] Minecraft Bedrock Realms servers support user-made add-ons, resource packs, behavior packs, and custom Minecraft maps.[62] At Electronic Entertainment Expo 2016, support for cross-platform play between Windows 10, iOS, and Android platforms was added through Realms starting in June 2016,[64] with Xbox One and Nintendo Switch support to come later in 2017,[65] and support for virtual reality devices. On 31 July 2017, Mojang released the beta version of the update allowing cross-platform play.[66] Nintendo Switch support for Realms was released in July 2018.[67]

Modification

Further information: Minecraft modding

A smeltery within the mod Tinkers' Construct

The modding community consists of fans, users and third-party programmers. Using a variety of application program interfaces that have arisen over time, they have produced a wide variety of downloadable content for Minecraft, such as modifications, texture packs and custom maps. Modifications of the Minecraft code, called mods, add a variety of gameplay changes, ranging from new blocks, items, and mobs to entire arrays of mechanisms.[68][69] The modding community is responsible for a substantial supply of mods from ones that enhance gameplay, such as mini-maps, waypoints, and durability counters, to ones that add to the game elements from other video games and media.[70] While a variety of mod frameworks were independently developed by reverse engineering the code, Mojang has also enhanced vanilla Minecraft with official frameworks for modification, allowing the production of community-created resource packs, which alter certain game elements including textures and sounds.[71] Players can also create their own "maps" (custom world save files) that often contain specific rules, challenges, puzzles and quests, and share them for others to play.[72] Mojang added an adventure mode in August 2012[73] and "command blocks" in October 2012,[51] which were created specially for custom maps in Java Edition. Data packs, introduced in version 1.13 of the Java Edition, allow further customization, including the ability to add new achievements, dimensions, functions, loot tables, predicates, recipes, structures, tags, and world generation.[74][75]

The Xbox 360 Edition supported downloadable content, which was available to purchase via the Xbox Games Store; these content packs usually contained additional character skins.[76] It later received support for texture packs in its twelfth title update while introducing "mash-up packs", which combined texture packs with skin packs and changes to the game's sounds, music and user interface.[77] The first mash-up pack (and by extension, the first texture pack) for the Xbox 360 Edition was released on 4 September 2013, and was themed after the Mass Effect franchise.[78] Unlike Java Edition, however, the Xbox 360 Edition did not support player-made mods or custom maps.[79] A cross-promotional resource pack based on the Super Mario franchise by Nintendo was released exclusively for the Wii U Edition worldwide on 17 May 2016,[80] and later bundled free with the Nintendo Switch Edition at launch. Another based on Fallout was released on consoles that December,[81] and for Windows and Mobile in April 2017.[82] In April 2018, malware was discovered in several downloadable user-made Minecraft skins for use with the Java Edition of the game.[83][84] Avast stated that nearly 50,000 accounts were infected, and when activated, the malware would attempt to reformat the user's hard drive.[84][83] Mojang promptly patched the issue, and released a statement stating that "the code would not be run or read by the game itself",[83] and would run only when the image containing the skin itself was opened.[85]

In June 2017, Mojang released an update known as the "Discovery Update" to the Bedrock version of the game.[86] The update includes a new map, a new game mode, the "Marketplace", a catalogue of user-generated content that gives Minecraft creators "another way to make a living from the game", and more.[87][88][89]

Development

Minecraft creator Markus "Notch" Persson at the GDC in 2016

Before creating Minecraft, Markus "Notch" Persson was a game developer at King, where he worked until March 2009. At King, he primarily developed browser games and learned several programming languages. During his free time, he prototyped his own games, often drawing inspiration from other titles, and was an active participant on the TIGSource forums for independent developers.[90]

One such project was "RubyDung," a base-building game inspired by Dwarf Fortress, but with an isometric, three-dimensional perspective similar to RollerCoaster Tycoon.[91] Among the features in RubyDung that he explored was a first-person view similar to Dungeon Keeper, though he ultimately discarded this idea, feeling the graphics were too pixelated at the time.[92][93] Around March 2009, Persson left King and joined jAlbum, while continuing to work on his prototypes.[94][93][95] Infiniminer, a block-based open-ended mining game first released in April 2009, inspired Persson's vision for RubyDung's future direction.[92] Infiniminer heavily influenced the visual style of gameplay, including bringing back the first-person mode, the "blocky" visual style and the block-building fundamentals.[92] However, unlike Infiniminer, Persson wanted Minecraft to have RPG elements.[96]

Minecraft lead designer and creative director Jens "Jeb_" Bergensten in 2011

The first public alpha build of Minecraft was released on 17 May 2009 on TIGSource.[97][98] Over the years, Persson regularly released test builds that added new features, including tools, mobs, and entire new dimensions. In 2011, partly due to the game's rising popularity, Persson decided to release a full 1.0 version—later known as the "Adventure Update"—on 18 November 2011.[2] Shortly after, Persson stepped down from development, handing the project's lead to Jens "Jeb" Bergensten.[99]

On 15 September 2014, Microsoft, the developer behind the Microsoft Windows operating system and Xbox video game console, announced a $2.5 billion acquisition of Mojang, which included the Minecraft intellectual property.[100][101] Persson had suggested the deal on Twitter, asking a corporation to buy his stake in the game after receiving criticism for enforcing terms in the game's end-user license agreement (EULA), which had been in place for the past three years.[102][103][104] According to Persson, Mojang CEO Carl Manneh received a call from a Microsoft executive shortly after the tweet, asking if Persson was serious about a deal. Mojang was also approached by other companies including Activision Blizzard and Electronic Arts.[104] The deal with Microsoft was arbitrated on 6 November 2014 and led to Persson becoming one of Forbes' "World's Billionaires".[104][105][106]

For many years, Minecraft received annual major updates[107]—free to players who have purchased the game—[108] each primarily centered around a specific theme. For instance, version 1.13, the Update Aquatic, focused on ocean-related features,[109] while version 1.16, the Nether Update, introduced significant changes to the Nether dimension.[110] However, in late 2024, Mojang announced a shift in their update strategy; rather than releasing large updates annually, they opted for a more frequent release schedule with smaller, incremental updates, stating, "We know that you want new Minecraft content more often."[111] The Bedrock Edition has also received regular updates, now matching the themes of the Java Edition updates. Other versions of the game, such as various console editions and the Pocket Edition, were either merged into Bedrock or discontinued and have not received further updates.[112]

On 7 May, 2019, coinciding with Minecraft's 10th anniversary, a JavaScript recreation of an old 2009 Java Edition build named Minecraft Classic was made available to play online for free.[113][114][115]

On 16 April 2020, a Bedrock Edition-exclusive beta version of Minecraft, called Minecraft RTX, was released by Nvidia. It introduced physically-based rendering, real-time path tracing,[116] and DLSS for RTX-enabled GPUs.[117] The public release was made available on 8 December 2020.[118] Path tracing can only be enabled in supported worlds, which can be downloaded for free via the in-game Minecraft Marketplace, with a texture pack from Nvidia's website,[119] or with compatible third-party texture packs.[120] It cannot be enabled by default with any texture pack on any world.[121] Initially, Minecraft RTX was affected by many bugs, display errors, and instability issues.[122][123]

On 22 March, 2025, a new visual mode called Vibrant Visuals, an optional graphical overhaul similar to Minecraft RTX, was announced. It promises modern rendering features—such as dynamic shadows, screen space reflections, volumetric fog, and bloom—without the need of RTX-capable hardware. The update is planned to be released in 2025 for Bedrock Edition first, coming to Java Edition at a later date.[124][125][126]

Editions

Java Edition

Cave Game, an early 2009 version of Minecraft.

Development began for the original edition of Minecraft—then known as Cave Game, and now known as the Java Edition—on 10,[127] 11[128] or 12 May 2009,[129] and ended on 13 May, when Persson released a test video on YouTube of an early version of the game, dubbed the "Cave game tech test " or the "Cave game tech demo".[130][131] The game was named Minecraft: Order of the Stone the next day, after a suggestion made by a player.[132] "Order of the Stone" came from the webcomic The Order of the Stick, and "Minecraft" was chosen "because it's a good name".[133] The title was later shortened to just Minecraft, omitting the subtitle.

Java Edition major update release timeline

Pre-release years in red

2015
2009	Pre-Classic
Classic
Survival Test
Indev
2010	Infdev
Alpha
Alpha v1.2.0 - v1.2.6: "Halloween Update"
Beta
2011	Beta
Release 1.0: "Adventure Update"
2012	1.1
1.2
1.3
1.4: "Pretty Scary Update"
2013	1.5: "Redstone Update"
1.6: "Horse Update"
1.7: "The Update that Changed the World"
2014	1.8: "Bountiful Update"
2016	1.9: "Combat Update"
1.10: "Frostburn Update"
1.11: "Exploration Update"
2017	1.12: "World of Color Update"
2018	1.13: "Update Aquatic"
2019	1.14: "Village & Pillage"
1.15: "Buzzy Bees"
2020	1.16: "Nether Update"
2021	1.17: "Caves & Cliffs: Part I"
1.18: "Caves & Cliffs: Part II"
2022	1.19: "The Wild Update"
2023	1.20: "Trails & Tales"
1.20.3: "Bats and Pots"
2024	1.20.5: "Armored Paws"
1.21: "Tricky Trials"
1.21.2: "Bundles of Bravery"
1.21.4: "The Garden Awakens"
2025	1.21.5: "Spring to Life"

Persson completed the game's base programming over a weekend in May 2009, and private testing began on TigIRC on 16 May.[134] The first public release followed on 17 May 2009 as a developmental version shared on the TIGSource forums.[135] Based on feedback from forum users, Persson continued updating the game.[136][137] This initial public build later became known as Classic.[138] Further developmental phases—dubbed Survival Test, Indev, and Infdev—were released throughout 2009 and 2010.[139]

The first major update, known as Alpha, was released on 30 June 2010.[140][141] At the time, Persson was still working a day job at jAlbum but later resigned to focus on Minecraft full-time as sales of the alpha version surged.[142] Updates were distributed automatically, introducing new blocks, items, mobs, and changes to game mechanics such as water flow.[142] With revenue generated from the game, Persson founded Mojang, a video game studio,[143] alongside former colleagues Jakob Porser and Carl Manneh.[136]

On 11 December 2010, Persson announced that Minecraft would enter its beta phase on 20 December.[144] He assured players that bug fixes and all pre-release updates would remain free.[145] As development progressed, Mojang expanded, hiring additional employees to work on the project.[146]

The game officially exited beta and launched in full on 18 November 2011.[147] On 1 December 2011, Jens "Jeb" Bergensten took full creative control over Minecraft, replacing Persson as lead designer.[148] On 28 February 2012, Mojang announced the hiring of the developers behind Bukkit, a popular developer API for Minecraft servers,[149] to improve Minecraft's support of server modifications.[150] This move included Mojang taking apparent ownership of the CraftBukkit server mod,[151] though its legitimacy was questioned due to its open-source nature and licensing under the GNU General Public License and Lesser General Public License.[152]

Pocket Edition

"Pocket Edition" redirects here. For the type of book, see Pocket edition.

In August 2011, Minecraft: Pocket Edition was released as an early alpha for the Xperia Play via the Android Market, later expanding to other Android devices on 8 October 2011.[153][154] The iOS version followed on 17 November 2011.[155] A port was made available for Windows Phones shortly after Microsoft acquired Mojang.[156] Unlike Java Edition, Pocket Edition initially focused on Minecraft’s creative building and basic survival elements but lacked many features of the PC version.[157] Bergensten confirmed on Twitter that the Pocket Edition was written in C++ rather than Java, as iOS does not support Java.[158]

On 10 December 2014, a port of Pocket Edition was released for Windows Phone 8.1.[159] In January 2017, Microsoft announced that it would no longer maintain the Windows Phone versions of Pocket Edition.[160] Pocket Edition was rebranded as Bedrock Edition in 2017, enabling cross-platform play with the new Xbox One and Nintendo Switch versions.[161]

Bedrock Edition and Console Editions

The console versions of Minecraft debuted with the Xbox 360 edition, developed by 4J Studios and released on 9 May 2012.[162][163] Announced as part of the Xbox Live Arcade NEXT promotion,[163] this version introduced a redesigned crafting system, a new control interface, in-game tutorials, split-screen multiplayer, and online play via Xbox Live.[164] Unlike the PC version, its worlds were finite, bordered by invisible walls. Initially, the Xbox 360 version resembled earlier PC versions but received updates to bring it closer to Java Edition before its eventual discontinuation.[165] The Xbox One version launched on 5 September 2014, featuring larger worlds and support for more players.[166] Minecraft expanded to PlayStation platforms with PlayStation 3 and PlayStation 4 editions released on 17 December 2013 and 4 September 2014, respectively.[167] Originally planned as a PS4 launch title, it was delayed before its eventual release.[168][169] A PlayStation Vita version followed in October 2014.[170] Like the Xbox versions, the PlayStation editions were developed by 4J Studios.[171]

Nintendo platforms received Minecraft: Wii U Edition on 17 December 2015, with a physical release in North America on 17 June 2016[172] and in Europe on 30 June.[173] The Nintendo Switch version launched via the eShop on 11 May 2017.[174] During a Nintendo Direct presentation on 13 September 2017, Nintendo announced that Minecraft: New Nintendo 3DS Edition, based on the Pocket Edition,[175] would be available for download immediately after the livestream, and a physical copy available on a later date. The game is compatible only with the New Nintendo 3DS or New Nintendo 2DS XL systems and does not work with the original 3DS or 2DS systems.[176]

On 20 September 2017, the Better Together Update introduced Bedrock Edition across Xbox One, Windows 10, VR, and mobile platforms, enabling cross-play between these versions.[177][178] Bedrock Edition later expanded to Nintendo Switch[177] and PlayStation 4, with the latter receiving the update in December 2019, allowing cross-platform play for users with a free Xbox Live account.[179] The newest console version to launch as part of Bedrock Edition is the PlayStation 5 version, which released on October 22, 2024.[180] On 18 December 2018, the PlayStation 3, PlayStation Vita, Xbox 360, and Wii U versions of Minecraft received their final update and would later become known as "Legacy Console Editions".[181] On 15 January 2019, the New Nintendo 3DS version of Minecraft received its final update, effectively becoming discontinued as well.[182]

Other versions

Minecraft Education

An educational version of Minecraft, designed for use in schools, launched on 1 November 2016.[183] It is available on Android, ChromeOS, iPadOS, iOS, MacOS, and Windows,[184] It was built on the Bedrock Edition codebase, and beta testing ran from 9 June to 1 November 2016,[185] with the full release available on macOS and Windows 10 by November.[183] On 20 August 2018, Mojang announced that it would bring Education Edition to iPadOS in Autumn 2018. It was released to the App Store on 6 September 2018.[186] On 27 March 2019, it was announced that it would be operated by JD.com in China.[187] On 26 June 2020, a public beta for the Education Edition was made available to Google Play Store compatible Chromebooks. The full game was released to the Google Play Store for Chromebooks on 7 August 2020.[184]

China Edition

On 20 May 2016, China Edition (also known as My World) was announced as a localized edition for China, where it was released under a licensing agreement between NetEase and Mojang.[188] The PC edition was released for public testing on 8 August 2017.[189] The iOS version was released on 15 September 2017,[190] and the Android version was released on 12 October 2017.[191] The PC edition is based on the original Java Edition, while the iOS and Android mobile versions are based on the Bedrock Edition. The edition is free-to-play and had over 700 million registered accounts by September 2023.[192]

Minecraft for Windows

This version of Bedrock Edition is exclusive to Microsoft's Windows 10 and Windows 11 operating systems. The beta release for Windows 10 launched on the Windows Store on 29 July 2015.[193] After nearly a year and a half in beta, Microsoft fully released the version on 19 December 2016. Called the "Ender Update", this release implemented new features to this version of Minecraft like world templates and add-on packs.[194] On 7 June 2022, the Java and Bedrock Editions of Minecraft were merged into a single bundle for purchase on Windows; those who owned one version would automatically gain access to the other version. Both game versions would otherwise remain separate.[195]

Variants

Main article: Minecraft (franchise)

Around 2011, prior to Minecraft's full release, Mojang collaborated with The Lego Group to create a Lego brick-based Minecraft game called Brickcraft. This would have modified the base Minecraft game to use Lego bricks, which meant adapting the basic 1×1 block to account for larger pieces typically used in Lego sets. Persson worked on an early version called "Project Rex Kwon Do," named after a Napoleon Dynamite joke. Although Lego approved the project and Mojang assigned two developers for six months, it was canceled due to the Lego Group's demands, according to Mojang's Daniel Kaplan. Lego considered buying Mojang to complete the game, but when Microsoft offered over $2 billion for the company, Lego stepped back, unsure of Minecraft's potential.[196]

Virtual reality

Initially, Persson planned to support the Oculus Rift with a Minecraft port. However, after Facebook acquired Oculus in 2013, he abruptly canceled the plans, stating, "Facebook creeps me out."[197] In 2016, a community-made mod, Minecraft VR, added VR support for Java Edition, followed by Vivecraft for HTC Vive.[198] Later that year, Microsoft introduced official Oculus Rift support for Windows 10 Edition,[199] leading to the discontinuation of the Minecraft VR mod due to trademark complaints. Vivecraft was endorsed by Minecraft VR contributors for its Rift support.[198] Also available is a Gear VR version, titled Minecraft: Gear VR Edition.[200] Windows Mixed Reality support was added in 2017. On September 7, 2020, Mojang Studios announced that the PlayStation 4 version would receive PlayStation VR support later that month.[201] In September 2024, the Minecraft team announced they would no longer support PlayStation VR, which received its final update in March 2025.[202]

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