To say that Minecraft is a huge success is something of an understatement. Originally released in 2011, it is arguably one of the most successful indie games in the history of gaming, selling more than 200 million copies as of last May. Being such a huge juggernaut, it's unsurprising that fans are still looking for ways to keep the endless possibilities that the game brings going, and one gamer is attempting to go beyond what the game is capable of.
Pushing Minecraft to its very limits, user KurtJMac, otherwise known as Kurt, has spent the last ten years in search of the Far Lands. For those who don't know, the Far Lands is effectively the visual end of the game's procedurally generated world. It is a point that sits more than 12.5 million blocks away from the original spawn point and represents the upper boundaries for what can be generated by the algorithm before everything starts to look a little abstract.
Kurt has been uploading Minecraft videos to YouTube since he began playing in 2011. He says that he didn't intend to go looking for the Far Lands, that it was just a "spur of the moment decision" in which he suddenly decided he wanted to try and walk to the edge of the map. Kurt also realized that his audience was growing and decided to raise some money for charity, starting at $850 which he easily raised within five days. He has since upped the donation goal and continues to add to it as more people watch. So far, watchers have donated around $450,000 to charity.
At the moment, Kurt has apparently made it nearly 40% of the way to the Far Lands, which is equal to about 4.8 million blocks. As of this article going live, he is several videos into the series which he calls "Far Lands or Bust", and is sitting pretty with 412,000 subscribers to his YouTube let's play channel. Kurt's dedication not only to Minecraft but to the continuation of his let's play series shows how far fans are willing to go for the games they've been playing and enjoying for years.
Minecraft is just one of those games that seems to have infinite potentials. From Kurt's charity videos in which he challenges himself to walk 12.5 million blocks, to the player who created a functioning arcade cabinet in the game, Notch's humble beginnings ten years ago is living proof that games are not just something to play to kill time, they are an institution.
Minecraft is available now for Mobile, PC, PS4, PS5, Switch, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S.