Minecraft Genoa

Minecraft Genoa was the first phase in the development cycle of Minecraft Earth. Minecraft Genoa development was started in 2014 and was phased out in favor of Minecraft Earth Beta in 2019.

Microsoft HoloLens
Prior to its official announcement on the Mojang blog, various promotional videos of Minecraft running universally on the HoloLens were shown by Microsoft. An edition of Minecraft running on Windows 10 was later demoed publicly at the convention, where Lydia Winters on a  and a Microsoft employee on the HoloLens were both playing and interacting with the game.

Jens Bergensten initially tweeted after Microsoft's Windows 10 event on January 21, 2015 that a holographic edition of Minecraft was being developed. It was stated that two Minecraft projects were being made, one being "a toy" and the other being "closer to the game".

A and a Surface Pro 3 could be seen at Microsoft's segment at the E3 2015 convention, wherein both devices demoed were running the Windows 10 Edition of Minecraft and were seamlessly playing together.

Two different playable modes were shown, one being a "wall" mode where a player can use an Xbox controller to interact and play with a conventional Minecraft world that was being projected holographically onto a wall. It is possible to resize the projection and also to fix the projection into place which allows for peering through from the left or right to get a different perspective similar to that of a window without the need of a controller. The other was a "reality" mode in which players are able to project a world in 3D atop of real-world objects such as a table without the need for a controller.

In reality mode, players are able to use voice commands and hand gestures among other features of the headset to interact with the world. It is possible to target specific areas of the map with voice commands by glimpsing towards them, for example looking directly at an object and using a command such as "lightning strike" would summon a lightning bolt relative to that area. Another example is the ability to "markup" an area by looking at an object which creates a vertical beam of light similar to beacons. Voice commands can also be used to change the view of the world and allows for following a player with modes such as "close up" or "overview" to change how close the camera is to the player. Hand gestures such as pinching can be used to zoom into a particular area, pan around the world and also to move the world vertically.

On May 6, 2019, Microsoft released a video on YouTube, where some features from Minecraft Earth were shown. On May 8, 2019, a trailer was released, showing some AR mods in Minecraft Earth. On Minecraft's 10th anniversary (May 17, 2019), Minecraft Earth was officially announced.

Videos
https://vimeo.com/396356164 https://vimeo.com/390266465 https://vimeo.com/394702886 https://vimeo.com/387622544 https://vimeo.com/390425663