Game Rant’s World of Minecraft Book Review

Minecraft recently celebrated their 25th anniversary, and yet the game is showing no signs of slowing down. Currently, Minecraft has five total spin-offs, if you include Minecraft Earth and Minecraft Education, which are extremely similar to the base game. Along with games, there have been myriad books and comics, toys, and, naturally, Lego sets.

Now, another book has been added to the roster, albeit far from what many gamers might expect from Minecraft. Designed as a classic coffee table book, The World of Minecraft offers players an engaging visual history of one of the most influential game series of all time.

Reminiscing About the Good Old Days

Although they have fallen out of favor with most people, the fact remains that Minecraft started with a Swedish programmer who went by the name Notch. The book doesn’t shy away from this, though the ‘narrator’ of the book is Jens ‘Jeb’ Bergensten. However, here begins the first indication that the book may not be for mega-fans as much as for fans of those mega-fans.

A lot of the writing is spent creating some sense of legitimacy behind early Minecraft development, trying to establish the game as less indie than it was, which is somewhat wild, considering the fact that the game was playable for years before its initial, official release in 2009. While interesting, compared to the other details provided, it’s strange that readers learn that Notch was a programmer at the same company that developed Candy Crush.

In the same vein, there’s an odd part where the text describes Java as, “a 1990’s programming language popular with browser game developers”. This is true, but that wording makes it sound like Java was only used in the 1990’s or that it’s an old, unusual programming language, despite the fact that we still use it today, on all kinds of digital projects.

Coffee table books are typically long-winded in their explanations, which may be why this book goes into such strange detail and attempts to legitimize the franchise, but with Minecraft being over 25 years old now, there’s really no need.

More details and images are provided to show off the early stages of Minecraft, the first forums, and the introduction of survival mode. Unfortunately, again, this information falls flat. They miss many opportunities to discuss important Minecraft history. For example, beside the images of Creeper ‘designs’ are many blurbs about survival mode, yet the tale of how Creepers were actually created is missing. While this story is pretty well-known – Creepers were a glitch that happened during a redesign of the pigs – the lack of specific information and genericized history of the game makes it so the story would have fit in perfectly. Why was it left out?

Celebrating Viral Creations

Part of the reason that Minecraft grew to legendary status among gamers was the fact that people were sharing their builds online, and going viral for it. The book doesn’t quite get this right either, giving too brief of entries to multiple famous builds, while also leaving out vital catchphrases and other iconic elements of each community.

One of the most famous Minecraft streamers, The Yogscast, gets their own page, but there’s not a single image of their Shadow of Israphael characters, nor any mention of their catchy “diggy, diggy hole” rhymes. Instead, basically every two pages is made up of a bunch of call out paragraphs, followed by a single photo or a photo set, each pair of pages making up a part of a whole chapter. Though this is to be expected of coffee table books, the already less-than-readable entries barely have any information at all.

Another example is Greenfield, a major Minecraft city that has been in development for years. While I have heard of this server, I am not super familiar with it. This book didn’t clear anything up, and has less than a dozen images of the place. Greenfield easily could have been its own chapter, as the city is being built to scale and, as of May 2022, the city is only one-fourth complete with 20 million blocks in play.

Behind the Scenes Content

One thing that draws many gamers to purchase art books and other anthologies related to their favorite game are the early sketches, development notes, and other behind-the-scenes information. The World of Minecraft book definitely has some of these available, both throughout the book and towards the end.

That being said, there is a shocking lack of development images in this book. There are barely any mobs included, almost no images of villagers, and there aren’t even full lists of other Minecraft content, such as the more than two dozen books and comics, the spin-off games, Lego sets, toys, cards, and tabletop games. However, the book does spend the last handful of pages advertising some products and games that may or may not be available, depending on the current collectible value and whether the item is still being made, or was a limited edition.

There are certainly some sketches and notes shown off throughout the book, but they are the bare minimum and come with captions that barely manage to describe what is being shown, much less give any insight on its history.

One other extremely annoying aspect was the lack of attention paid to Minecraft Education. Minecraft has been used for education for years, in classrooms ranging from pre-school to college. The redstone function within the game has been credited with giving an entire generation of kids an innate understanding of basic programming logic, yet this is not discussed anywhere in the book for more than about half a sentence.

Overall Impression

Minecraft has been a beloved part of gamers’ lives for the better part of three decades now, and there are many ways to celebrate the game, and its history, on a server or in real life. Sadly, The World of Minecraft is less a history book, and more a cash-grab. It’s tough to say why a die-hard fan might want this book, but there are certainly people who would enjoy it. To be fair, the book has a wonderful argyle cover design, with various shades of green making a dynamic background for the golden title. As far as coffee table books go, The World of Minecraft is a stylish one.

Public areas, such as libraries and schools, would likely enjoy having the book around and won’t have to worry about content at all. As for individual sales, I think this would make for a fantastic gift from a child to a parent or grandparent who likes art books and has fond memories of playing with their child. Honestly, it can be a touching gift that shows just how much that quality time meant to the gamer. Plus, at it’s current half-off price of $25, it’s not a big expense at all.

At the end of the day, though, Minecraft fans should probably stick to the other books from Mojang. There is so much Minecraft content to explore, yet you wouldn’t know it from this book. A visual history it may well be, but a thorough one? Not so much.