Minecraft has truly shown us what is possible with a bit of imagination and dedication. We continue to see amazing worlds and cities recreated within the game. Most of these include amazing details, which has many wondering how the players achieved such perfection within the lego-like block game. Another team of more than 2700 players has taken on the massive project of recreating one of the world’s most iconic cities.
The New York Times first reported a Minecraft project called ‘Build the Earth’. This project currently has 2731 members working tirelessly to recreate New York City. If that wasn’t hard enough, the group is committed to creating a 1:1 scale replica with each Minecraft block representing one cubic meter of the real world. The project is in its second year of development.
One of the benefits of doing such an iconic city is that the data available is much better. Minefact, the leader of the building team, is based in Frankfurt. He creates building outlines for Minecraft using Google Maps. He reported to the New York Times, saying that New York City was much easier to tackle than many other cities, even his own because the open-street map data is so good.
The project started with the 9/11 Memorial as the open space and geometric lines made it the ideal location to recreate in Minecraft. From here, the team would spend one week working on a district and then move on to the next district and circle back to complete any unfinished areas. The team decided to do it this way to keep the member’s interest, keep it exciting, and the project moving forward.
Two years in, the team has reached a comfortable pace. However, considering that New York has more than one million buildings, it could still be a few more years before this entire project is complete. We look forward to seeing the final recreation once the team completes the project. If you haven’t played the game yet, make sure you check our complete Minecraft review.
