Minecraft Earth servers to close down this June

Minecraft Earth, the alternate reality mobile game where players could recreate the feeling of playing Minecraft in the real world, will shut down at the end of June due to COVID-19.

An official announcement on the Minecraft website reads "Minecraft Earth was designed around free movement and collaborative play – two things that have become near impossible in the current global situation. As a result, we have made the difficult decision to re-allocate our resources to other areas that provide value to the Minecraft community and to end support for Minecraft Earth in June 2021."

Minecraft Earth was clearly released to rival popular ARG Pokemon Go, however the game didn't garner as much of a player base as Niantic's Pokemon title. Pokemon Go has had to adjust its approach during the pandemic and rework large in-person events such as Pokemon Go Fest. 

Ahead of the game shutting down this summer, Microsoft has unveiled a series of updates to "make these last months as fun as possible." Here's what that update does:

• Removes real-money transactions
• Drastically reduces ruby costs
• Includes all completed, unreleased content in pipeline
• Reduces time requirements for crafting and smelting
• Replaces unused crafting and smelting boosts with radius boosts of the same level
• Grants a set of character creator items for players who sign in between now and June 30

Microsoft will cease all content and service support for Minecraft Earth on June 30 which means you won't be able to play or download the game any longer. It's certainly a bummer, and another reminder that we're still living through a global pandemic.

But not all is lost, there's a ton of new games in 2021 to look forward to.