Minecraft Earth Beginner’s Guide: Tips, Cheats, and Strategies

Minecraft Earth is a brand new Pokémon GO-like mobile game that allows you to take your creativity into the real world. You’ll explore a Minecraft version of your local area map, picking up valuable resources, farm animals, and treasure and then build like normal on a variety of Buildplates.

You can collaborate with friends on buildings, go on adventures, and customise your own blocky character. There’s a lot going on in Minecraft Earth, and while it does feel like a totally new way to experience the franchise, it still feels familiar. Everything you already love about it is there.

In this guide, we’re going to walk you through how it works then give you a bunch of tips and tricks on how to get started.

Minecraft Earth Beginner’s Guide – How it Works:

When you first boot up Minecraft Earth, you might feel a little lost as to what to do. That’s fair enough, as it’s not really very straightforward. Much like in regular Minecraft, you’re just sort of thrown into the world and expected to figure out what’s going on for yourself.

Fortunately, we’ve spent some time with Minecraft Earth to help ease you into the experience. The reason it doesn’t need a tutorial is because it’s not a particularly complex experience, and once you’ve scratched beneath the surface you realise it’s not that dissimilar to Minecraft.

Basically, begin by wandering around the real world, tapping on anything that highlights to nab yourself some resources. You should find all of the usual Minecraft blocks, including mud, rocks, and more. You’ll also find farm animals like cows and sheep, which you can place on your own Buildplate.

Which brings us quite nicely to Buildplates. These are like your own miniature Minecraft worlds that you can place anywhere in the real world. They’re yours, so don’t worry about someone coming along and ruining them for you. You can also bring them with you anywhere you go, accessing them at any moment and carrying on with your building project.

You can also add friends to your Buildplate, allowing them to visit it at any point and help you finish it. Your Buildplate can be anything, from a nice little house to visit to a farmyard full of the animals you’ve caught. It’s entirely up to you and your creativity.

When not messing around with your Buildplate, you can craft your usual Minecraft creations – provided you have the materials. You can access the ‘Make Stuff’ section by tapping its icon at the bottom of the screen. It’s the third on the left, just to the right of the Buildplates button.

Next to the Make Stuff menu you’ve got your settings, challenges, and friends list. We recommend taking a look at the challenges, as these change on a daily basis and reward you for doing stuff you’d normally do anyway. You can check them and claim your rewards by tapping on challenges.

The last menu button is the store, where you can spend Rubies, the premium currency, on new Buildplates. These can simply be bigger plots, or pre-built villages, farms, and more.

Tap on your character button at the top left of the screen and you can customise it at any point, purchasing new outfits and cosmetic upgrades with coins you earn while playing.

Lastly, you’ll see glowing locations on the world map. If you physically walk to these with your actual real body, you can tap on them to participate in Adventures. These are like miniature Minecraft worlds that you can explore for rare materials, to battle monsters, and to hang out with friends. That’s right, friends can go on adventures with you!

They also use the power of AR to create the world right before your eyes, and everything you collect is also picked up by friends, so there’s no need to fight each other for the rarest of materials. You all get them!

Minecraft Earth – Beginner’s Guide:

Now that you understand the basics, let’s take a look at some specific tips and tricks:

• It’s just Minecraft: Don’t overthink it – Minecraft Earth really is just a micro-Minecraft that you can take with your wherever you go. You’ll collect resources by tapping stuff in the real world and create your usual creations on your Buildplate, which you can take with you wherever you are.
• Complete your daily challenges: Each day you get to complete challenges, which reward you for doing stuff you’d probably do anyway. Make sure to check your challenges each day from the second menu option from the right at the bottom of the screen.
• Collect stuff whenever you leave the house: Every time you go out in the real world, see it as an opportunity to earn some rewards in Minecraft Earth. Just pop your phone open every now and then to see what’s nearby. With a few taps of your finger you’ll have a bunch of new rewards.
• Go on Adventures occasionally for rare rewards: Adventures are like micro-Minecraft adventures that challenge you to collect rare resources and battle monsters with your friends. If you’re trying to track something down for a build, chances are you’ll find it on an Adventure.
• Share your Buildplates with friends: Buildplates are tiny Minecraft worlds that you can build stuff on using AR. You can bring your Buildplate with you no matter where you are in the world, and you can share it with friends to collaborate together on creations.

Glen Fox

Head of Editorial

Glen has over a decade's worth of experience in gaming journalism, writing for Pocket Gamer, Pocket Tactics, Nintendo Life, and Gfinity. When he's not badgering everyone about the dangers of passive text, you can probably find him playing Wild Rift.