3-year project to rebuild Earth in Minecraft completed—and available to the public soon

YouTube content creator RTGame, with the help of a massive force of players, has completed a 1:4,000 scale copy of the entirety of Earth in Minecraft—a monumental task that took the community three years to finish.

Titled “New Earth”, RTGame began the project in July 2020 and ultimately resulted in a video series spanning 28 videos and covering the creation process of each major section of the planet, from theory to practical installation. It was a long endeavor, even on a smaller scale, and required the work of thousands of fans to complete. And soon, the end result in all its glory will be made available to the public.

It started out with a simple idea: take a preset map of the world in Minecraft, and slowly fashion it into something much more accurate to our blue planet. Anyone who subscribed to RTGame’s Twitch channel could add to the world both on and off-stream. Going region by region, the team would start with the most notable monuments and keep building from there.

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Starting with Europe and ending with South America, the build aimed for both accuracy and comedy. One of the earliest examples of this was how Tesco littered Europe, even within monuments. Though, as the development went on, the world was split using portals, with all players starting in a travel hub. Beginning in the hub, players can travel across the world in seconds before zooming through to the country of their choice. The whole development of the map was covered in YouTube videos and live streams, but they also have a Wiki page detailing the process.

If you’re curious to see what the RTGame team has built before the map’s public release, don’t worry: the team made a dynamic map of New Earth, full of its gags from unexpected fleshy interiors to lots of Among Us characters hidden in buildings. There might be some minor details missing due to the scale, but a lot of the monuments and locations are relatively accurate. You’re not going to be able to walk down your own road like you can in Google Maps, but you are going to see some staple areas from your country or city.

If you’re sold and want to hop on the map as soon as possible, RTGame has told fans to stay tuned for an update via the Wiki page or on Twitter for the full public release of New Earth. RTGame has said he and his mod team will be “polishing up” the server before the world file becomes accessible.