A NUMBER of well-known Limerick locations are featured in an online realm in the world’s best selling video game.
Minecraft, played by more than 140 million gamers worldwide, is a video game where users work together to build virtual worlds, sometimes described as being like an online version of Lego.
And one crafty Limerick student has introduced the Treaty City to the mix.
Mateusz Bartnik was in transition year in St Clements College when he started working on the Build the Earth Ireland (BTE IE) project, a collaboration with other groups worldwide who recreate cities, towns, and landmarks all over the world.
Now in sixth year, Mateusz leads a 2,000-strong BTE IE online forum in building virtual versions of Irish cities.
Speaking to Newstalk, Mateusz said that the project enables people to go anywhere they like from the comfort of their own home.
“You can visit anywhere in Ireland you like, not only Limerick. You have the opportunity to see for yourself the country from your device, your PC, whatever.
“It’s on a 1:1 scale, so you can picture yourself there in the game and you can look up to St John’s Cathedral … you can go anywhere really.”
The BTE IE team is now made up of 15 managers, 2,000 members of their online Discord server, and over 100 individual builders.
However, the group say that it’s about more than just building a virtual world.
“The project isn’t just about ‘building in a computer game’, but is an active community that is always happy to help those who need it and has thrived in times where many organisations struggled to efficiently communicate online,” they said.
The group are very active on their social media platforms, with over 30,000 followers on TikTok and over three million views on their building videos.
Build the Earth Ireland now hope to continue building Ireland, with 0.03% of the country already built in Minecraft so far.
