Minecraft Earth is officially over, shuts down forever today

By Zachary Boddy
last updated

It's not a surprise, but it's still sad to see it go.

Minecraft Earth Hero Image
Minecraft Earth Hero Image (Image credit: Mojang Studios / Twitter)

What you need to know

  • Minecraft Earth was a mobile AR spin-off game that sought to bring parts of Minecraft into the real world.
  • A confusing and chaotic launch, poor post-launch support, and foundational issues immediately plagued Minecraft Earth's existence.
  • Today officially marks the last day of Minecraft Earth's short life, as Mojang Studios shuts it down for good.
  • The game is no longer available to download from app stores, and isn't functional for players anymore.

Today is a sad day for Minecraft Earth fans (the few that are still out there), but it's not a surprising day. As Mojang Studios announced earlier this year, Minecraft Earth is officially end-of-life, meaning the game is gone for good. Today, Minecraft Earth is removed from app stores and will cease to be functional for the remaining players that were taking advantage of Minecraft Earth's parting gifts the last few months.

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It's not shocking to witness Minecraft Earth's demise, as the game started off rough with a strangely subdued soft launch and a myriad of foundational issues like aggressive microtransactions, gatekeeping timers, and more. With mobile gaming behemoths like Pokemon Go providing players with a never-ending stream of new content and a constantly evolving play model to adapt to current events, Minecraft Earth's glaring flaws became all the more egregious.

It wasn't until it was announced that Minecraft Earth was being closed down for good that Mojang Studios actually addressed many of these flaws (while demonetizing the game), but it was too little too late. Now, the fascinating but doomed Minecraft mobile experiment comes to an end forever.

Minecraft Earth can still offer something to Mojang Studios, however. Shortly after Minecraft Earth's last day was announced, I wrote about three things that Minecraft can learn from Minecraft Earth.

Hopefully, those who did put time into Minecraft Earth enjoyed their experience with the game. Minecraft Earth officially closing down won't affect Mojang Studios' core games, however, as Minecraft and Minecraft Dungeons are still going strong with constant support and updates, and a large and dedicated player base. These games remain some of the best Xbox games around, and can even be played on mobile devices through mobile versions or Xbox Cloud Gaming (xCloud).

Farewell, Minecraft Earth.

Zachary Boddy
Zachary Boddy
Staff Writer

Zachary Boddy (They / Them) is a Staff Writer for Windows Central, primarily focused on covering the latest news in tech and gaming, the best Xbox and PC games, and the most interesting Windows and Xbox hardware. They have been gaming and writing for most of their life starting with the original Xbox, and started out as a freelancer for Windows Central and its sister sites in 2019. Now a full-fledged Staff Writer, Zachary has expanded from only writing about all things Minecraft to covering practically everything on which Windows Central is an expert, especially when it comes to Microsoft. You can find Zachary on Twitter @BoddyZachary.