Minecraft Earth early access version rolls out in UK

The early access version of Minecraft Earth will release in the UK starting today, Microsoft has announced.

Minecraft Earth was announced in May, when the seminal building game celebrated its tenth anniversary.

As well as the ability to build in AR, Minecraft Earth features a location-based game in which players can gather resources and discover mobs as they travel the real world.

The early access version features Adventures, which are procedurally generated, limited-time Minecraft worlds that can be played in augmented reality in life size.

The iOS and Android AR game is already available as an early access version in Canada, South Korea, Philippines, Sweden, Mexico, Australia, New Zealand and Iceland.

Microsoft says it plans to add more countries each week until Earth is available worldwide by the end of the year.

“This will allow us to have people play, test and provide feedback on the game to help us shape the experience into how we want it to be,” the company said in a statement.

Microsoft demonstrated the first Minecraft Earth live gameplay during Apple’s WWDC keynote in June. Microsoft said at the time that Minecraft sales had topped 176 million.

Rather than developing a full-blown sequel, Microsoft has said its primary concern is keeping the existing Minecraft community happy with updates and new versions of the game, such as the episodic Minecraft: Story Mode and dungeon crawler Minecraft Dungeons, which is set for release in spring 2020.