A rare alpha build of Minecraft that was live for less than four hours back in 2010 has been rediscovered, according to a report by Kotaku.
The early build of the sandbox game was discovered by Twitter user @Lunasorcery, who unwittingly kept the rare alpha on an old hard drive. In a recent Twitter thread, Luna described the events that lead to the alpha’s rediscovery while highlighting the importance of game preservation.
According to Luna, the 1.1.1 build of Minecraft is a “holy grail “, one that was seemingly lost to video game history. However, thanks to an old tweet from 2010, Luna was prompted to check an old hard drive. The result? It turns out the game was still on the drive. What a discovery!
Now, thanks to Luna and the preservation group Omniarchive, the 1.1.1 version of Minecraft is now available to download via Archive.org. Luna has also revealed that they downloaded the rare Minecraft version approximately 89 seconds before the 1.1.2 version was released, which they describe as “cutting it awfully close“.
So, what have we learned today? Well, for starters, you should probably always keep onto old storage devices, as they’re essentially invaluable digital time capsules. The alpha’s re-discovery is also a testament to video game preservation as a whole and the importance of digital archives. As Luna says, never delete anything!
Hopefully, Luna’s discovery will prompt others to check their old hard drives. Who knows, perhaps more rare alpha builds of games will be discovered!
Are you going to give the Minecraft Alpha a try? Let us know how you get on!
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Featured Image Credit: Mojang