Minecraft steps into virtual reality as Samsung Gear VR Edition appears in Oculus Store

28.04.2016
Minecraft—the popular world-building game—is now available in virtual reality.

Minecraft: Gear VR Edition went on sale Wednesday in the Oculus Store, selling at $7 to download. The game includes all the features of Pocket Edition, including a “creative” mode that lets you build out a world, “survival” mode for fighting, and a multiplayer option. (Check out this video of the game in action.)

While available in the Oculus store, the game is meant to be played on the $100 Samsung Gear VR headset, which in turn requires the use of a Galaxy S7, Galaxy S7 Edge, Galaxy Note5, Galaxy S6 edge+, Galaxy S6, or Galaxy S6 Edge.

“Experiencing (Minecraft) in virtual reality changes it from an abstract activity to a visceral one,” Oculus’s John Carmack said in a blog post announcing the game. “It goes from a sense of playing the game to one of being inside your world, and spinning around to find a creeper sneaking up on you leaves a powerful impression.”

Carmack’s blog post also notes that a gamepad is needed to play this edition of Minecraft. He recommended the $60 SteelSeries Stratus XL Bluetooth controller, available from Amazon.

Why it matters: It’s difficult to say whether Minecraft needs virtual reality gamers, or virtual reality needs Minecraft—with its more than 100 million registered users—to help its continued growth as a gaming platform. Assuming the game plays as smoothly as its Pocket Edition counterpart, which already seemed pretty immersive to users, both sides of the relationship stand to gain.

(www.pcworld.com)

Joel Mathis