There are two kind of miraculous stories going on in gaming right now. One is Pokémon GO, which has managed to not only live past its initial hype from three years ago when it took over the world to still be one of the largest, most profitable, most played mobile games on the market to this day. The other is Minecraft, even older, having just turned 10, yet it’s having a “moment” as it’s been re-adopted by players and content creators alike, somehow becoming more popular than ever.
And now these two are going to overlap, potentially for Minecraft’s benefit specifically.
Minecraft has just rolled out a new trailer announcing select early access for Minecraft Earth, which should be starting up in October. Minecraft Earth is Microsoft and Mojang’s take on a Pokémon GO-like AR game which gets Minecraft players out into the real world. But instead of catching monster, they’re fighting off Creeps and building structures in the real world which can be planted and viewed through the AR lens of players’ phones. Build a castle on your front lawn and the idea is that other players can pass by and see it standing there. That’s the idea, anyway.
Between the continued popularity of Pokémon GO and the resurgence of Minecraft, if there was every another title to rival GO it feels like it’s going to be Minecraft Earth when it launches in full.
Many originally thought that it would be Niantic’s own Harry Potter: Wizards Unite that would take on that mantle, an AR game in the vein of GO made in part by its original creators, and yet that game has mostly sputtered and left a minimal cultural impact. The concept just didn’t really translate to an AR, location-based game where players were asked to “catch” things like wardrobes and clocks and quidditch balls which are just…not nearly as interesting as Pokémon.
Minecraft Earth, meanwhile, has a concept that immediately marries AR, real-world travel and the core concept of Minecraft’s building and exploration in a way that makes perfect sense. As such, provided the game works as intended and isn’t some kind of technical disaster, it seems like the right moment to capitalize on the dual popularity of GO and standard Minecraft with a game like this. It really does feel like it has the potential to be revolutionary, given both what I’ve seen from the technical aspects of the game and how engaged the Minecraft fanbase is currently. I can also envision a host of YouTubers and Twitch streamers live-vlogging their Minecraft Earth adventures like we used to see with Pokémon GO, which is a raft of content that will help carry the game to even more eyeballs.
I don’t know when Minecraft Earth will launch in full. If early access is in October, a winter launch wouldn’t exactly be great for an outdoor-based game, so perhaps we might have to wait all the way until spring. But when it does get here? Watch out, and mark my words, this will be a hit.
