Items tagged with Mojang
Who would have thought that Minecraft would be worth the effort to add ray-traced visuals to its blocky textures and comparatively simple graphics? But that's what happened, and the Minecraft with RTX beta turned out to be a wonderful example of how ray tracing can benefit a game, as we saw in our hands-on impression. Now a month later, gamers who have been pining for more are getting their wish. NVIDIA today announced the release of the Creator Worlds Pack #2. It features five new Creator Worlds with new gameplay, and of course those delightfully traced rays that make Minecraft with RTX pop. And according to NVIDIA, you can expect to see new uses of RTX's ray-traced effects, along with new physically-based...
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In case you missed the news, the Minecraft with RTX beta is here, and with it comes a beautifully repainted world with path-traced rendering, physically-based materials, and NVIDIA DLSS 2.0 support to bolster performance. This is essentially Minecraft with ray tracing. To run it, you will need a relatively well-equipped PC. Specifically, the minimum requirements call for the following hardware... CPU: Intel Core i5 or equivalent, or better GPU: NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2060 or better RAM: 8GB or more Storage: 2GB (game, plus all worlds and resource packs) Operating System: Windows 10 64-bit The GeForce RTX 2060 is the most affordable graphics card with dedicated hardware (RT cores) for real-time ray...
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It was seven months ago that NVIDIA announced it was working to give Minecraft a makeover, thanks to the ray tracing hardware acceleration hardware built into its GeForce RTX line of graphics cards. Well, unless you've been living under a rock -- or haven't been spending as much time on our news page as you should -- you know that Minecraft publisher Microsoft will make a beta of this new techology available to the public at 1 PM Eastern time today. We've been playing Minecraft RTX with its new graphics features the last few days, and now we can show you what it's all about. While real-time ray tracing with DXR has been the headlining feature, NVIDIA and development studio Mojang...
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NVIDIA has been talking up Minecraft with RTX for nearly a year now, but we're getting very close to the first public beta for the game. As its name implies, this enhancement to Minecraft brings everything that you know and love about the popular game with the inclusion of GeForce RTX effects. According to NVIDIA, the Minecraft with RTX Windows 10 Edition Beta will go live on April 16th. With RTX enabled, Minecraft adds ray-traced reflections, global illumination, emissive lighting, volumetric fog effects and more, which brings a bit of added realism to the still blocky environments. The effects can be quite dramatic; especially with the reflections and atmospheric lighting. In addition,...
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Minecraft fans have a lot to look forward to starting next month. Early access for Minecraft Earth, the Minecraft AR game, launches in October. The devs recently gave up lots of details at Minecon Live about what gamers can expect in the coming months. But of course, the biggest thing from the event was the talk of Minecraft Earth incoming. Once early access is opened up, the devs say that they plan to have Minecraft Earth all over the globe by the end of 2019. Minecraft Earth uses augmented reality to allow gamers to build Minecraft constructions in the real world using their phones. The initial beta of Minecraft Earth started in late August in five cities. Fans can check this page for more...
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Minecraft Earth has begun rolling out to Android devices as part of a closed beta period. So far, developer Mojang has flipped the switch in five cities, including Seattle, London, Tokyo, Stockholm, and Mexico City. More will be added, and if you want know when you can play on your handset, you need to head over to the Play Store and jot your name down. "Discover a new dimension of Minecraft as you create, explore, and survive in the real world. Join a community of builders and explorers spanning the planet, collect resources for your builds, craft in augmented reality and then place them at life-size. You can even team up with others for mini-adventures!," Mojang explains. You can pre-register...
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When we think of Minecraft, we think of an addictive game that allows us to escape the rigors of everyday life to embark in a simplistic, virtualized world that is both fun and engaging. However, Facebook sees Minecraft as more than just mere child's play -- in fact, it's using the game as a training ground of sorts for its AI assistant. Team members from Facebook Research are using the 3D sandbox game because of its near limitless ability to create and rules that are "simple and predictable within certain limits" according to MIT Technology Review. This simplicity makes Minecraft a perfect fit for a generalist AI assistant. Facebook researcher Arthur Szlam and his team have crafted an AI...
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One of the most popular games ever made is getting a big-time facelift. At Gamescom, NVIDIA announced it has been working with Mojang and Microsoft to bring real-time ray tracing to Minecraft, the world's best selling video game, transforming colorful, block-filled worlds into richer landscapes with realistic lighting effects. This is Minecraft as you have never seen it before, and perhaps never envisioned. Since Minecraft is not particularly demanding to begin with, NVIDIA has opted to refit the entire game with path tracing, a compute-intensive form of ray tracing. In other words, this is full-scene ray tracing and not a hybrid implementation. NVIDIA did the same thing with Quake II RTX, and...
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Are you ready to take your Minecraft skills to the next level? The creators of Minecraft, are releasing a new augmented reality mobile game, Minecraft Earth. The Minecraft Earth beta will be available this summer and arrives just in time for Minecraft’s tenth anniversary. Minecraft Earth will allow players to make life-size creations and place them in the real world through augmented reality (AR). Players will be able to discover new mobs, collect resources, complete challenges, and fight off enemies. They will also be able to craft items with other Minecraft Earth players and share their creations through the game. Minecraft Earth will be free to play and available on iOS and Android devices....
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Are there any Minecraft fans in the house? Mojang’s sandbox video game is about to receive a “Boss Update” for Minecraft Pocket Edition for Android and iOS and the Minecraft Windows 10 Edition Beta. The update was announced at MineCon in Anaheim, California. The Boss Update includes several interesting new features, including add-ons. Mojang’s Marsh Davies remarked, “They let you remix mobs, switching out the models, textures and behaviors. Rideable chickens! Ultra-explosive pigs! Et cetera!” Players will be able to customize the appearance of animals, mobs, and other items by working with JSON. Mods tend to be a PC-specific add-on, however, the add-on’s will also work on mobile. Many...
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Microsoft and Mojang today are celebrating the one-year anniversary of the launch of Minecraft on the Windows 10 platform. Since that time, Mojang has pushed out 15 major updates for the game and has crushed over 6,000 bugs for what has become a worldwide smash hit. So to celebrate its first birthday on Windows 10 (which itself is celebrating a birthday tomorrow), Mojang has a couple of surprises in store for gamers. The first is a new Villains Skin Pack, which can be purchased for $1.99. “Grab it and join forces with Minecraft’s most dastardly denizens: slink from the shadows as the sinister Stronghold Seer, unleash the fury as the ferocious Lava Fiend, or, er, sell silverfish as the monstrous...
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With over 100 million copies sold, Minecraft qualifies as the best selling PC game of all time, and the second best selling video game for any platform behind Tetris. Given how wildly popular it continues to be more than five years after release, it was probably inevitable that Minecraft would eventually land on the silver screen, and in 2019 it will."Hello future Minecraft movie-goers! I know you've been thinking just about every day. 'When's the Minecraft movie coming out?' Luckily for you, we can finally say! The Minecraft movie will be released on May 24, 2019!, Mojang stated in a blog post.Why so far in the future? That may seem like an eternity to fans of the franchise, "but it just so...
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Give Microsoft credit, it didn't ruin Minecraft when it purchased Mojang for $2.5 billion nearly two years ago. At the time of purchase, Xbox boss Phil Spencer noted that Minecraft was "one of the most popular franchises of all time." It had sold over 54 million copies, and now two short years later, sales have almost doubled with Mojang bragging nearly 107 million copies sold to date. "We’d like to offer our heartfelt thanks to every one of you who’s bought Minecraft over the past few years, no matter which platform you play on. We’re constantly in awe of our community and the amazing things you achieve together. You really are the best. <3," Mojang said in a blog post announcing the sales...
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Minecraft is seemingly taking over the gaming world with its accessible gameplay and simple (but fun) mechanics. The game is appealing to all ages of gamers and even serves as a learning tool in primary schools and universities, which is why Microsoft was so keen on purchasing developer Mojang for $2.5 billion back in 2014. That reach expanded when Minecraft: Wii U Edition launched this past December and today, Nintendo and Mojang have announced a strategic partnership to bring the Super Mario Mash-Up Pack to the platform. You’ll find Super Mario-themed textures, 40 skins (Mario, Luigi, Wario, Bowser and many other are included) and 15 audio tracks from Super Mario 64 to get it in you the mood...
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It's not too often that we see a game developer release a new title at the same time it's announced, but we're seeing that this week with Mojang's Crown & Council. On its blog, the Minecraft creator tells us that C&C was developed by a single member of the team, Henrik Pettersson, and as it's completely free. In its description, Crown & Council doesn't sound that different from a Sid Meier's Civilization title. With each new game, you start out small then decide whether you want to build a huge army right from the get-go, or try to survive long enough to train some brainiacs at the university to help you craft some even more debilitating weapons. Your ultimate goal in this game is...
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Minecraft is the ultimate sandbox for geeks and gamers alike. It attracts players of all ages and skill levels, and once hooked, it becomes a time waster of epic proportions, as any Minecraft junkie will attest. But for as much fun as Minecraft is to play, its combat system has been pretty limited, at least until now.Development studio Mojang, which is owned by Microsoft, announced a pretty robust update for the PC version of Minecraft. Described as a "Combat Update," the version 1.9 upgrade introduces a host of changes to the combat mechanics designed to "make fighting more interesting." One of the changes is a new cool-down delay that makes it vitally important to time your attacks—no more...
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Minecraft is a blockbuster game that has been played by millions around the globe, both young and old. The incredible popularity of the game is what prompted Microsoft to buy the game’s creator, Mojang, for $2.5 billion in late 2014. And while Minecraft is can be seen as a game that allows players to dilly dally a virtual 3D world, the creative and building aspects of the game have been cultivated to help in learning environments. Over the years, Google’s Quantum AI Lab Team and MinecraftEdu joined forces to experiment with quantum physics. In March, an even deeper dive into the education sector occurred when MinecraftEdu was made available to every secondary school in Northern Ireland....
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In what must be considered one of the most obvious, inherently logical, and overdue moves in open world gameplay, the Internet, technology, commerce, business, marketing, etc., LEGO has launched LEGO Worlds, the company's entry into the sandbox gaming space. Available through Valve's PC gaming Stream platform (Windows only, at this stage), LEGO Worlds players can procedurally generate their own landscapes using LEGO bricks that can be freely manipulated (virtual ones, of course), and they can dynamically populate their worlds with LEGO models based on real-world LEGO play sets (mini-figs, vehicles, creatures...other LEGO-branded whatnot!). The website speaks specifically of a...
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It appears that the rumors have turned out to be true. Today, both Microsoft and Mojang announced that they have reached an agreement where Microsoft will pay $2.5 billion for Mojang, which includes its Minecraft franchise and other IPs currently being developed. However, it was also revealed that the game developer’s founders will be leaving the company. “Minecraft has grown from a simple game to a project of monumental significance,” Mojang chief word officer Owen Hill wrote on the developer’s official website. “Though we’re massively proud of what Minecraft has become, it was never Notch’s intention for it to get this big.” He went on to explain,...
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The rumors keep on flying as an unnamed source “briefed on the matter” told Reuters that Microsoft is not only looking to acquire Minecraft developer Mojang, but buy it for the hefty sum of $2.5 billion. That’s $500 million more than was previously rumored last week. The same source went on to say that an announcement could be made this Monday. At last count, the popular voxel-based, sandbox game has sold over 54 million units total. The game is available on Xbox 360, Xbox One, PlayStatin 3, PlayStation 4, iOS, Andoid, and PC platforms. However, the game is not available on Nintendo platforms or Microsoft’s Windows Phone or Surface tablet. Speculation is that Microsoft...
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There is no doubt that, at this point, the Xbox One needs a shot in the arm. While Microsoft has struck a deal with Square Enix for limited exclusivity over Rise of the Tomb Raider, Sony was able to hog the advertisement spotlight when it came to Destiny. Now Microsoft is reportedly looking to acquire Minecraft developer Mojang according to unnamed sources that talked to The Wall Street Journal. According to its sources, WSJ says that the value of Mojang has been estimated to be more than $2 billion. A price that Microsoft could be willing to pay for the developer but, according to the unnamed source, both sides are still working out many of the details. Microsoft’s Xbox One console has...
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Mojang, the developer that brought Minecraft to the masses, originally wanted to launch Scrolls, a card collecting strategy game, at the end of April. That didn't happen, though Mojang has committed itself to a release date, announcing that Scrolls will launch in "Open Beta" on June 3 for Windows and Mac OS X. Ahead of the launch, Mojang has put together a mini-guide detailing basic gameplay elements. It's a short read filled with in-game screenshots and one that's definitely worth going through if you plan to play Scrolls next week. There's also this teaser video: You'll be able to play against others online, as well as trade cards from any of the decks you build. The battlefield consists of...
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