Mind-blowing Middle-earth manufactured in Minecraft

by Jordan Mallory on Jul 23rd 2011 5:30PM

Minecraft is one of the most flexible creation engines this side of LittleBigPlanet, and despite the pretty cool stuff we've seen in the past, nothing comes even remotely close to the synapse-destroying brilliance of the in-game, more-or-less-to-scale Middle-earth created by Shorvok and the hobbits of Minecraft Middle-Earth.

A large majority of the reproduction has been crafted without the use of plug-ins, with incredibly massive cliff-faces and mountain vistas being carved by hand. More than a thousand man-hours have been devoted to the project, and the results are nothing less than breathtaking. If you've got the time, we heartily recommend watching the full video. If you're pressed for time, however, make sure and check out Rivendell at 29:09 and the Mines of Moria at 33:23.

[Thanks EvoHelix!]

(Please note, neither Joystiq nor Minecraft Middle-Earth can be held responsible for brains exploded in bewilderment.)

Source: YouTube, Minecraft Middle-Earth

Tags: Lord-Of-The-Rings, Middle-Earth, Minecraft, Mines-of-Moria, pc, Rivendell, YouTube

Reader Comments (54)

I just want to take this opportunity to say:
Dial M for Monkey

@darkinchworm

Dee-dee! Get out of my Laboratory!

@darkinchworm

Omlet du, fromage.

@darkinchworm I thought this is was reference to Bonobo's album and I was confused but happy.

@MrPistachio
You're the only other person on the internet who I've seen reference Bonobo... you're awesome!

@applefleas Upranking both of you. Black Sands has been on repeat on my iPod for the last two weeks. Check out Emancipator - Safe In The Steep Cliffs for some similarly awesome chilled trip-hop.

"I actually remember working on this and it took forever and was of the most painfully boring jobs ever." and why do people do this again???

@thevoid

15 minutes of internet fame... which i equal to 5 IRL time

@thevoid Because the result is amazing.

yup, you sure can recreate things in map editors. what? this isnt the 90s anymore? ok, meh then

Lol nian cat, golem, scooby doo, dexter and what looks like a clone trooper. What an amazing bunch!

Can we play in this? I wanna make my own little journey.

If Peter Jackson needs a quick form of reference to help him out with two upcoming "Hobbit" films, he look no further than here.

The only reference he needs is The Hobbit, but J.R.R. Tolkien and The Lord of the Rings motion picture trilogy.

I still don't understand the big allure to this game. Sure some of that looked awesome (in a pixelated blurry mess kind of way) but if a game shipped using these same graphics (even with these same settings like Rivendell ) NO ONE would be geek-ed over it unless the game-play was pure old school Zelda or something like that.

@Matrixxxx Its not about glorious graphics, its about the experience while playing Minecraft thats so great. And what all these people made was beyond amazing.

@Matrixxxx
You "still" don't understand the appeal of the game because you don't WANT to understand the appeal.

The game has been out and well known across a variety of different gaming outlets. If after all this time of "internet fame" Minecraft has had you STILL don't think of the game as more than a collection of ugly blocks, it's clear you've been keeping yourself willfully ignorant of what the game is actually about.

@Matrixxxx: I suppose you find appeal in the rehashed Battlefield and Call of Duty games that come out every year or two, however? Games where the biggest changes are usually in regards to graphical tweaks, rather than gameplay.

If you've never played Minecraft then no, of course you won't get the appeal of it by merely looking at it. I'm not saying it's a game for everyone, but I'm certainly saying you shouldn't judge a book by it's cover.

Games are more than their graphics.

@Matrixxxx

Its simple. Minecraft is the hipster of video games. If in doubt, just read the previous replies.

@Matrixxxx ...people like you really need to sttttooooooppppp hating, if your not WOW'ed by this and immediately drawn to minecraft... you probably never will be so just stop.
personally i freaking love great graphics... that's why i play crysis... that's not why i play minecraft. i play minecraft because i love me some minecrafting.

@Matrixxxx

Umm... A game did ship with these graphics. Its called Minecraft. And over a million people geked out and bought it while it was still in Beta.

So what was your point again?

Games are art and this game goes a lot farther to prove that point than almost any other HD, high-res game out there.

@Matrixxxx

I am just wondering, if you have actually played the game?

Because I didn't understand until I played it. And to be honest asking someone to understand a game without playing it is like understanding a picture without seeing it or a song without listening to it. Video games are about interaction. What effect does your character have on the world. And minecraft amplifies this. Your character can literally shape the entire world to his/her liking.

I just came...

Now do Westeros

I never, ever, get impressed by games. This blows my mind to million pieces. I am so damn impressed beyond my little mind.

"WHAT THE WHAT!?"

@Peril I want to go to there.

I'd make a joke about them being virgins but I think it would be too obvious that I'm just jealous of their hard work and in awe of the results.

Now lets see AVATAR!!!!!

"I wish you could smoke a pipe in Minecraft, I'd look so much cooler"...

No..no you wouldn't...

@Slomoshun These people see the world much differently than we do...

I watched the whole thing, and THAT IS AMAZING! Honestly, it's like the community can work harder and make something cooler for free than game developers can make when they get paid.

I can't wait for the RPG.

@dfdsfho SSSSSSSSSSSSPPPPPPPPPPPPPPAAAAAAAAAMMMMMMMMMMMMMM!!!!

stunning. hopefully they will find a way to make the sun stop rendering while in the mines

Amazing. Now, make 2Fort in Minecraft. Do want.

Now make Hogwarts... wait, what?

@sonofman
+1

@Lucky48..... for anyone who hasnt watched it yet... IT"S GREAT but, make sure to take breaks every 10min or so. after about 30min i felt like throwing up (im not joking; this is a real warning). anyways, i really wish i didnt have a life (i'm taking 6week classes) so i could do something half as cool as this.

@sonofman :( but I don't want to die :(
Thanks for watching anyway :P

"...mountain vistas *punched* by hand."

Fixed.

Wow. Thousands of man-hours and it still looks horrible because it's Minecraft and everything is made out of low-res blocks. Rivendell looks like what I imagine the real Rivendell would look like after I got smacked in the head with a shovel and had dirt rubbed in my eyes.

@tehixe

And yet its still more than you'll ever accomplish. Funny how that works, isn't it?

@Apakal LOL! Thank you for that. That was genuinely funny. I accomplish more in one day at work (you know, in the real world) than these guys have accomplished by using someone else's creation tools to recreate someone else's intellectual property in 16 bit resolution.

@tehixe

I bet you do. And you're wonderfully detailed examples really solidify your argument.

@Apakal

your*

@Apakal

Lol! You just get funnier and funnier. If I was a janitor and my sole job was to clean barf off the floor, I'd accomplish more than this on a daily basis. But you're not gonna bait me into revealing personal information. You're less than nothing to me, so you can think what you want. The fact remains, rendering middle earth in this obsolete graphics engine is NOT an accomplishment.

@tehixe
minecraft is a "graphics engine" now?

@gevenstaines

I was being generous :P

Neeeeeeeeeerrrrrds!

Holy crap, I'm both blown away by the nerdiness of this, as well as the incredible architecture and devotion to detail.

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Minecraft

Mind-blowing Middle-earth manufactured in Minecraft

Reader Comments (54)

Posted: Jul 23rd 2011 5:38PM darkinchworm said

Posted: Jul 23rd 2011 5:50PM Acosta02 said

Posted: Jul 23rd 2011 6:38PM jtothechan said

Posted: Jul 23rd 2011 7:14PM MrPistachio said

Posted: Jul 24th 2011 4:55AM applefleas said

Posted: Jul 24th 2011 1:25PM Alasdair said

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Posted: Jul 23rd 2011 6:20PM PR0F3TA said

Posted: Jul 23rd 2011 6:24PM Once known as Shadsy said

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Posted: Jul 23rd 2011 6:10PM The Only Girl said

Posted: Jul 23rd 2011 6:30PM Shadowbender said

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Posted: Jul 23rd 2011 7:14PM linkboy77 said

Posted: Jul 23rd 2011 8:29PM PointlessPuppies said

Posted: Jul 23rd 2011 11:21PM Mr Tastix said

Posted: Jul 24th 2011 2:08AM SisypheanLife said

Posted: Jul 24th 2011 2:42AM stevo13344 said

Posted: Jul 24th 2011 7:50AM Apakal said

Posted: Jul 24th 2011 9:47AM Daverator said

Posted: Jul 23rd 2011 7:03PM PrimeSynergy said

Posted: Jul 23rd 2011 7:27PM TheyDidItFirst said

Posted: Jul 23rd 2011 8:01PM huffhuffhuff said

Posted: Jul 23rd 2011 8:01PM Peril said

Posted: Jul 23rd 2011 11:54PM Relkin109 said

Posted: Jul 23rd 2011 8:04PM mezzaninex said

Posted: Jul 23rd 2011 8:14PM (Unverified) said

Posted: Jul 23rd 2011 8:25PM Slomoshun said

Posted: Jul 24th 2011 1:16PM EvoHelix said

Posted: Jul 23rd 2011 9:02PM Warlock234 said

Posted: Jul 23rd 2011 9:02PM Warlock234 said

Posted: Jul 23rd 2011 11:58PM gevenstaines said

Posted: Jul 24th 2011 12:21AM Dooliss said

Posted: Jul 24th 2011 1:28AM Soiden said

Posted: Jul 24th 2011 1:58AM (Unverified) said

Posted: Jul 24th 2011 2:37AM stevo13344 said

Posted: Jul 24th 2011 2:43AM TheJesseCox said

Posted: Jul 24th 2011 3:37AM ch3burashka said

Posted: Jul 24th 2011 4:04AM tehixe said

Posted: Jul 24th 2011 11:54AM Apakal said

Posted: Jul 24th 2011 12:05PM tehixe said

Posted: Jul 24th 2011 12:30PM Apakal said

Posted: Jul 24th 2011 12:30PM Apakal said

Posted: Jul 24th 2011 2:35PM tehixe said

Posted: Jul 25th 2011 5:06PM gevenstaines said

Posted: Jul 25th 2011 9:01PM tehixe said

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Posted: Jul 24th 2011 11:18AM Enosoma said

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