Minecraft Earth Shutting Down This Year

The augmented reality sandbox game Minecraft Earth, developed by Mojang Studios, will be closing in June 2021. It is very sad to see the game shutting down because of COVID-19. Many will miss the game, particularly its real-life, free-movement mechanic similar to Pokémon Go. Mojang plans to shut down this division and split the resources with other sections within Minecraft.

Before Minecraft Earth goes down, the developer is releasing one final update to make the game's finale more fun. The update includes:

• 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.

All content and services for Minecraft Earth will discontinue on June 30, ending every activity of the game. Then on July 1, the developer will delete Minecraft Earth player data that are unrelated to Character Creator and Minecoin. For more details about the sunset program for Minecraft Earth, you can find it here.

Players with ruby balances will be granted Minecoins, which is the universal currency used within Minecraft stores for buying DLCs or skins. Another cool thing Mojang is doing for players is giving a free copy of Minecraft Bedrock Edition to those who purchased anything in the Minecraft Earth store.

So, what are your thoughts on Mojang shutting down Minecraft Earth? Personally, I think the game launched at a terrible time. Physical distancing and movement restrictions made it difficult for this AR game to flourish. Plus, it only supported a limited number of devices. Mojang could still bring it back after the pandemic, and it might beat Pokémon Go. Whatever your thoughts may be, let us know in the comments below.