The Minecraft Earth closed beta has officially begun in two cities: London, U.K., and Seattle, Washington. Mojang previously announced that the beta would be available for some players before the end of the summer, and the team dropped this surprise announcement today for these two cities. Players in London or Seattle who signed up to participate in the Minecraft Earth closed beta had a chance of being selected, and Mojang says it has invited thousands of these players into the closed beta. According to Mojang, more cities will be joining London and Seattle in the closed beta in the next few days.
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According to the Minecraft Earth FAQ on Mojang’s website, the closed beta has only certain features available for players, but more will be added to the beta over time. The FAQ also clarifies that the beta will be for iOS players only at first, but Android support will be added once the team is ready to add more players.
Mojang revealed Minecraft Earth back in May. The Minecraft spin-off is a free-to-play, augmented reality, mobile game. Hoping to capitalize on the success of similar augmented reality games like Pokemon Go and the recent Harry Potter Wizards Unite, Minecraft Earth allows players to use their phones’ AR functionality to build Minecraft structures in the real world. In addition to building, players will be able to fight monsters, collect items and resources, collect and breed creatures, and collaborate with friends to build even more elaborate structures.
Minecraft Earth‘s gameplay was revealed at Apple‘s Worldwide Developer Conference in June. In the stage demo, we see that players can build with Minecraft blocks in miniature scale and then blow their structures up into large-scale, “life-size” builds, letting players feel like they’re inside the worlds they create.
There’s no final release date for Minecraft Earth as of yet. If you’re interested in signing up for the Minecraft Earth closed beta yourself, head over to our Minecraft Earth beta sign-up guide to make sure you’re ready.
