Is there anything that hasn’t been recreated in Minecraft yet? Washington D.C, what appears to be the plane crash from LOST and Westeros from Game of Thrones are just a few locations that have been built from scratch with meticulous detail. Now, Minecraft players can explore good ole’ Great Britain.
Some of the folks at mapping specialist Ordnance Survey have created a free, custom 22 billion block map for breakout indie video game Minecraft, representing a whopping 224,000 square kilometres (or 86,000 square miles) of the famous island.
Players set off from the company’s base in Southampton, before blasting into the air and flying around the map to take in the sights of England, Scotland, Wales and their surrounding islands (Northern Ireland is missing because it’s mapped by another company).
Given that the Minecraft world is geographically accurate, it’s also possible to fast-travel to specific spots using standard grid references.
Admittedly, the map isn’t completely accurate. It has a maximum height of 2,500 metres, so locations such as Ben Nevis are capped at just over 128 blocks high. Still, it’s a wonderful gaming environment that would be ideal for educational purposes. What are you waiting for? Go download Minecraft GB for your PC or Mac – although a word of warning, it’s about 3.6 GB uncompressed.
➤ Minecrafting with OS OpenData
Image Credit: OS Map of GB screenshots
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