Yesterday Mojang announced the re-release of a Minecraft version, Minecraft Classic, available to play in your browser, completely free of charge. You can access the game at classic.minecraft.net, which, as the page title shows, is the version 0.0.23a_01. According to the game's Gamepedia, this version was released on July 11-12, 2009, and it was the last version of the Multiplayer Test. The browser version says: "You are the host. You can invite some (9) friends to join you." You can then copy the URL and send it to friends so you can play with them.
As Minecraft approaches its 10-year anniversary on May 17, Mojang decided to re-release Minecraft Classic for modern browsers, so that players can either revisit the classic version, in case they "hated every update we’ve ever released," as the Mojang employee said, or experience it for the first time in case you only got on the game's bandwagon once it had more features. Minecraft Classic features only 32 blocks to build with, and all the original bugs are still included in the build. The interface, which "only a mother could love," as the Mojang employee puts it, also remains exactly the same.
Mojang also adds that this isn't the only way they intend to celebrate the game's tenth anniversary. If you've been playing the game all of these ten years, you can learn more about #MinecraftMemories and share your own as well. You also have a chance to win a trip to Seattle with up to three guests, and attend "Minecraft: The Exhibition" at the Museum of Popular Culture. More information about the contest is available here. There are more plans for the 10-year anniversary celebrations, and Mojang advises fans to tune in on May 17 for more.
While the build is perfectly playable, one of our staff writers at TechRaptor suggests that fans should consider using Mozilla Firefox to play Minecraft Classic instead of Google Chrome, as the game tends to run like a potato on Google's browser for some reason. Chrome's infamous RAM hogging probably doesn't help.
What do you think of the browser version of Minecraft Classic? Is it still playable and enjoyable, or do you need more features? Let us know in the comments below!
