With the Coronavirus forcing most of the world into lockdown, it appears a number of major video game studios are offering free content to fans to incentivize social distancing. GOG recently made a number of major video game titles free to players looking for something to do while they're stuck at home while Geoff Keighley arranged a second Steam festival filled with demos for Steam owners to enjoy. Minecraft is the next major name to generously offer free content to fans, however, the reasoning behind its giveaway is seemingly deeper than alleviating boredom.
Announced via an Xbox blog post, a huge number of educational Minecraft DLCs have been made available for free, with the idea behind the move being to give children something informative and fun to do whilst schools are closed. It's an undeniably classy move from Microsoft, with the company attempting to help parents looking for productive activities for their children while they're stuck in self-isolation.
The packs included range wildly, with some being tours around famous buildings, others offering accurate scientific models, and some being immersive simulations that see the player have to manage realistic resources. Although there's a number of solid packs available in the free giveaway, the standouts include a tour around Mount Olympus, a realistic and fully explorable recreation of the International Space Station, a scientifically accurate model of the human eye, and a pack that teaches children about fractals. No doubt they'll all serve as educational - albeit still very fun - pieces of content that allow parents to give their kids an activity that combines learning and play.
It seems Minecraft has already become one of the more prevalent games since the beginning of the outbreak, with thousands of fans whittling away their days in quarantine playing the incredibly popular sandbox title. A Japanese school even hosted their graduation live in Minecraft due to a cancellation brought about by the Coronavirus, showing the power the game's freedom has in a time where players feel so fundamentally constrained.
It seems the game will only get more limitless as time goes on as well, with recent footage showing how next-generation technology will completely revolutionize what it means to play Minecraft. This includes stunning 4k visuals, realistic lighting systems, ray-tracing and much more. Evidently, this pandemic is pure proof of why Minecraft is such an incredibly popular experience, allowing thousands of players to escape the real world and do whatever their hearts desire in Minecraft; whether that be recreational or educational.
Minecraft is out now for PC, PS4, Switch, and Xbox One, along with many older platforms.
