Minecraft Earth Announces iOS-Exclusive Features At Apple WWDC

Microsoft showed the first gameplay for Minecraft Earth at Apple's annual WWDC conference, and in the process announced a couple of new iOS-exclusive features for the upcoming AR game.

The people occlusion feature lets you walk through or around your own life-size 3D creations. You can also use a motion capture feature to map your actual gestures to triggers for pre-set animations from characters in the game.

A closed beta for Minecraft Earth is scheduled for this summer on iOS and Android. The full game will let you tap on treasure chests, blocks, and mobs, take part in Adventures with resources to collect, and progress in your career with experience points. You can also build structures on Build Plates, and connect them with physical locations so that other people can see your work.

Apple's WWDC conference had another big video game reveal, with the announcement of PlayStation 4 and Xbox One controller support for iOS and Apple TV. WWDC was just the first of several planned events for this week, in which various publishers and developers are getting ahead of the E3 2019 rush with their own dedicated events. Those include a Google Stadia announcement, a Pokemon Nintendo Direct, and more.