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One of Minecraft’s biggest servers has just shut down

Minecraft fan-favourite server Mineplex arrived for the Mojang building game in 2013, but its operators say it is closing down, as we head into Minecraft 1.20.

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One of the most beloved servers in Minecraft, Mineplex is closing down following a sudden announcement from its operators. Launching for the Mojang building game back in 2013, it has provided Minecraft players with a range of custom maps and minigames. As we head into the Minecraft 1.20 version, however, Mineplex’s operators provide a statement saying that one of the most popular Minecraft servers is gone for good.

Earlier in May, the servers for Mineplex and its accompanying website both went offline. Initially, this might have seemed like a temporary disruption, but a statement from the Minecraft server’s administrators now confirms that – as we head towards the Minecraft 1.20 release date – Mineplex has been shut down permanently.

“As you’re all aware, all servers and the website have been down for a couple of days now,” ‘Dean,’ an administrator on the Mineplex Discord server, writes. “Unfortunately I have been given the burden of informing you that this will be forever. I shouldn’t need to be the one to tell you all this, I shouldn’t have to. But in the end you all deserve to know that it’s over and I suppose I’ll need to be the one to do it.”

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Mineplex was most widely known for its Minecraft minigames, as well as modded maps and game modes. In 2015, the server set a Guinness World Record for having the most concurrent players on any Minecraft server, with 34,434. After the arrival of Minecraft Java Edition, however, Mineplex’s popularity began to decrease, with the server closing down permanently on May 16.

“I wish there was more to say,” Dean continues. “I wish that things would have gone differently, and I wish we all would have had time to say a proper goodbye to it, give it a proper send-off. I am sorry that it went the way it did. You guys are passionate about this server.”

Dean says that the Mineplex Discord server will remain open as a “memorial,” though does detail precisely why the server has suddenly closed. “We worked for this company,” Dean says. “We didn’t own it, and we didn’t make the decisions that led us here.” You can read the statement in full below:

One of Minecraft’s biggest servers has just shut down: A statement explaining that Minecraft server Mineplex is shutting down

A separate announcement on the Mineplex Discord confirms that the server’s development team will be hosting a question-and-answer session from players, and also invites fans to share their memories from the server over the years.

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