Minecraft is coming to Chromebooks, in an early access version limited to very few machines at first.
Microsoft has announced that Minecraft will be coming to the Chromebook. Moreover, now the game can be tested in the early access version. According to developer Mojang, the game will feature “cross-device play with friends, access to the Minecraft Marketplace, and the ability to play worlds.”
Minecraft is coming to Chromebook
However, to take advantage of it, you’ll need a pretty decent Chromebook with a compatible processor, 4GB of RAM, and 1GB of storage, as detailed on this Zendesk page. These technical requirements may rightly frustrate some players, as Chromebooks are widely used in schools and many Minecraft players are children.
“Early Access means that at this point in time, only certain Chromebooks that meet the minimum requirements will be able to purchase Minecraft, so you’ll need to check the Google Play Store to see if Minecraft is available for your PC,”the blog says. “It’s not because we want to differentiate players – we all love you the same – it’s so we can test the game’s performance before releasing it to more players.”
In the early access version, limited to a very small number of cars, initially
Whoever says “early access”also says that players will have to deal with certain bugs even if they have paid for the game: “We expect there will be a lot of bugs, so we need your help,”the company wrote. “Let us know”if you find any errors.
Until now, you could only play Minecraft on a Chromebook through the Education Edition or the Java version. The Chromebook + Android package is $20, compared to $7 for the Android-only version, and the upgrade from Android to Android for Chromebook is offered for $13. Existing Minecraft worlds do not carry over to the Chromebook version and a Microsoft account is required to play.
At this stage, there is no information about the exact release date of the final version or whether the minimum configuration will change. Either way, if you don’t see the Early Access version on the Google Play Store, your Chromebook is not compatible.