While games have always provided a platform for virtual tourism, the feeling of freedom they offer has been more welcome this year than ever. The past twelve months have characterised by confinement. As the world grapples still with the pandemic, we’re self-isolating in our homes, with the odd opportunity to pop out being fleeting.
Minecraft has particularly proven to be an excellent avenue for virtual tourism, and so it’s proved again. One streamer has rebuilt Mount Everest to 1:1 scale in Mojang’s building game and then climbed it himself. G0ularte explains on Reddit that he started by downloading the Build The Earth project’s mod pack. If you haven’t heard of them, they’re trying to recreate the entire world in Minecraft to 1:1 scale.
The content creator then used a mod to give the world he was generating unlimited height and depth. To finish up, he used another mod that utilises public online datasets to create the earth’s structures and features in Minecraft without any unfamiliar blocks or biomes to 1:1 scale. G0ularte didn’t provide a download link for the map, but you can recreate the effort yourself using those three mods.
People queued up to ask the streamer why it only took him four hours to climb Everest as it takes up to two months in real life. The answer, quite simply, is that Minecraft Steve is inhuman. He can charge up the mountain without the need to rest, acclimatise, and wait for favourable weather conditions to progress.
G0ularte streamed the whole thing, and you can catch it over on Twitch if you fancy it.
There are plenty of other projects you can check out, too. Someone has made a fully playable map of Europe in Minecraft, and another person converted Google Earth into Mojang’s old PC game.
If you’re looking for something more games-focused, we spoke to a group of players who are remaking the original Destiny in Minecraft. Someone is remaking Doom, too, so you have lots of options.