Your home, made of blocks: Thousands of gamers unite to build the Earth in Minecraft

Do you recognize the building in this picture? 

While at first it may look like a beautiful shot of a sunset peeking over the turquoise roof of a Hungarian castle, look a little closer… can you spot the pixelated trees? The perfectly-sized stones on the foundation? The cubes making up the facade? 

That’s because it was made in the game Minecraft (Mojang, 2011). 

It all started in March 2020, when YouTuber "PippenFTS" (USA) put out a call to Minecraft-lovers worldwide, asking them to help him "Build the Earth" in the popular platform. 

As of 24 June, the project has over 8,000 people in “build teams” working systematically to document every inch of the globe and recreate it to scale in the game (where one block is equivalent to one cubic meter).

So far, it is the biggest Minecraft project ever attempted, and although they’ve finished mapping an estimated 768,020,507 sq m (8,266,903,935 sq ft) of the world – as of 24 June they've reached just 0.0000001506% completion.

The project uses several modifications to suit the server to their needs – such as Cubic Chunks, which allows them to shoot through Minecraft’s height limit of 255 blocks. In addition, they also use a mod called Terra 1-1 to pull information from geographic data services such as Google Maps and automatically generate terrain. No use of AI is permitted – just real humans, making real places.

On the Build the Earth website, their manifesto says the goal of the project is to make “a virtual copy of our whole world that showcases the diversity of culture and living space on our planet, and stands as a testament for what we can achieve when we work together as a global humanity.”

Even better? It’s BYOB (Bring Your Own Blocks).

Organizers invite everyone to join in their quest to document the Earth – whether that be building your house, your neighbourhood, or a city the size of London – and there are guidebooks and Discord chat rooms to help the builders share advice and discuss geography. Players of all levels are welcomed.

“We want to make the Earth and its wonders available for anyone with a Minecraft account, and invite all explorers and everyone that wants to experience the Earth from the comfort of their home,” Build the Earth said. 

“While building the Earth we are creating a global, international community where friendships and collaboration can develop across borders and we can achieve something together as unified humanity.”

Currently, players are broken up into dozens of Build Teams, working on replicating places such as: countries, cities, or regions, attractions like World Wonders or theme parks, famous buildings, historical sites, modes of transport, and more. 

So far, they’ve built everything from cathedrals to train stations, football stadiums and local neighbourhoods, sprawling green parks and congested cities, and mountains to old military bases. 

The largest build team has 3,720 members, dedicated to reconstructing New York City.

And as for the project’s creator, "PippenFTS"? He’s still building and sharing his creations, trying to get closer and closer to a completed planet. 

"I'm just trying to beat the game," he said.

Header image: Shutterstock