Minecraft Earth is officially closing down in June 2021, releases final update

What you need to know

• Minecraft Earth is the mobile AR spin-off of Minecraft that was launched in late 2019.
• The game had a rough start due to some misteps and aggressive microtransactions, and never quite recovered.
• After a series of solid updates and changes, Minecraft Earth is officially shuttering its doors later this year.
• Minecraft Earth officially closes June 30, 2021, and has released a final update to make things enjoyable for players until the end.

Minecraft Earth hasn't been the runaway success it could've been when Mojang Studios announced it back in 2019, with a lack of in-game content and wildly aggressive microtransactions mostly to blame for the game's inability to gain real popularity. Despite constant updates and injections of content to Minecraft's mobile Pokemon Go-like spin-off, Mojang Studios is officially shutting down later this year. Minecraft Earth will no longer be operational or downloadable as of June 30, 2021.

In order to make the last few months of Minecraft Earth more enjoyable for its few remaining players, Mojang Studios is releasing a final update for the game.

For players who are still playing Minecraft Earth, the game's final update includes the following changes:

• Removing real-money transactions
• Drastically reducing ruby costs
• Including all completed, unreleased content currently in our pipeline
• Reducing time requirements for crafting and smelting
• Replacing unused crafting & smelting boosts with radius boosts of the same level
• Granting a set of Character Creator items to players who sign in between January 5 and June 30
• Players with paid ruby balances will receive Minecoins for Minecraft: Bedrock Edition
• Anyone who has made any purchases in Minecraft Earth will receive a copy of Minecraft: Bedrock Edition for free

If you're still enjoying Minecraft Earth, this will make the last few months of the game's existence casual fun, and will hopefully set you up to have a blast in vanilla Minecraft instead. Minecraft Earth has fought a long, hard battle, but simply couldn't keep up with the ever-changing and aggressive mobile gaming landscape, and against heavy hitters like Pokemon Go. As of June 30, 2021, you will no longer be able to play or download Minecraft Earth. Mojang Studios will delete any player-related data on July 1, 2021, so there really is no coming back from this.

If you're looking for another Minecraft fix on mobile devices, consider trying Minecraft Dungeons through Xbox Cloud Gaming (Project xCloud). Minecraft Dungeons continues to be our pick for the Best Game for Xbox Cloud Gaming due to its addictive and casual gameplay, and possess surprisingly great touch controls to make it even easier to play on your mobile device.

It's saddening to see Minecraft Earth officially admit defeat, but this was inevitable. Minecraft Earth fought a good fight, and hopefully a lot of people got enjoyment out of this quirky AR Minecraft adventure.