This is an incredibly exciting time for Minecraft. Ten years ago today, the game launched on PC. Now, Minecraft has sold more than 176 million copies to-date in virtually every country in the world. As a way to celebrate 10 years for the franchise, we announced today a brand-new Minecraft game – Minecraft Earth.

Minecraft Earth is an all new free-to-play augmented reality game for mobile that will bring the creative nature of Minecraft to the real world.

The game’s mechanics are simple: explore your neighborhood to find blocks and unique mobs for your builds. Once you have them, any flat surface is an opportunity to build. Team up with friends to create amazing builds on Build Plates, and then place them in the real world to explore at life-size. You can even put your survival skills to the test and battle mobs IRL! Craft new items, breed mobs, grow crops –it’s Minecraft as you know it in a way you’ve never seen before. There’s endless fun to be had and it’s even better with friends.

Here’s some of the awesome new features of the game you’ll be able to experience:

• Go on Adventures! In “Minecraft Earth,” you’ll go out in the real world to find small clusters of blocks, chests or mobs called Tappables. As you walk, you will also find Adventures, which are small slices of Minecraft worlds that you play in life-size AR – your street becomes a mine where there may be diamonds under your feet, or your local park may have Minecraft trees where skeletons lurk, ready for a skirmish! Players will collect resources, fight mobs, and gain experience points to progress in their career.
• Collect, explore and survive! “Minecraft Earth” features many of the Vanilla Minecraft mobs that our players know and love, along with new ones we can’t wait to reveal (later). Over time, players will get the chance to discover and collect unique variants and use them to populate builds, as well as gather resources and take on nearby challenges.
• Experience your creations in front of you or ALL AROUND YOU! Players can build their own permanent creations in “Minecraft Earth” through Build Plates – the best implementation of the creative spirit of the Vanilla game. Build in small, tabletop-sized environments where you can interact from above, or place your Build Plates on the ground to see your creations outside in life-size scale.
• Collaborative multiplayer! Optimised for social multiplayer experiences, anyone with an AR-capable smartphone and “Minecraft Earth” installed will be able to join your session quickly and have fun together.
• Fancy-tech! “Minecraft Earth” blends state-of-the-art Microsoft technology like Azure Spatial Anchors tracking and PlayFab integration to bring the game to life for a sophisticated AR gaming experience.

The game blends state-of-the-art Microsoft technology like Azure Spatial Anchors AR tracking and PlayFab integration to bring the Minecraft Earth experience to life.

You can find “Minecraft: Earth’s” FAQ here