This may come as a shock to some, but Minecraft Earth still exists ever since it launched in October of 2019. However, that's set to change soon, as Microsoft-owned Mojang Studios announced today.
Minecraft Earth is an augmented reality game for smartphones based on the popular block-based open-world title. It was first announced in May 2019, and shown off live at Apple's WWDC that year. A public beta opened later that year, but the title seemingly failed to gain significant traction. The game allowed players to see Minecraft characters and environments in the real world, making use of the typical crafting mechanics to build out their inventory and explore further.
As of today, all paid transactions have been removed from the game, and many mechanics of the game have been made easier or more accessible so players can experience them before the game shuts down. Here's the full list of changes:
- Removing real-money transactions
- Drastically reducing ruby costs
- Including all completed, unreleased content currently in our pipeline
- Reducing time requirements for crafting and smelting
- Replacing unused crafting & smelting boosts with radius boosts of the same level
- Granting a set of Character Creator items to players who sign in between January 5 and June 30
The game will shut down on June 30, after which date the game will be unavailable to download. The day after, all player data except Character Creator and Minecoin entitlements will be deleted. Players with rubies left in the game will have them converted to Minecoins, which can be used to purchase paid items in console and PC versions of Minecraft. Additionally, anyone who has spent money on Minecraft Earth will be given a copy of Minecraft proper.
It seems like Microsoft's mobile titles haven't been terribly successful, as just a few months ago, Gears Pop! suffered a similar fate in a similarly short period of time. As a reminder, servers for that game will be online until April 26.
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