Oculus Rift creator Palmer Luckey announced at today’s Oculus Connect 2 event in Los Angeles that Mojang’s hit sandbox construction title Minecraft will receive VR support in a forthcoming update.
The Windows 10 version of Minecraft will support the Oculus Rift next year, allowing players to navigate the game’s blocky environments using a VR headset and an Xbox One controller.
Related: Minecraft Windows 10 update introduces cross-platform multiplayer
Minecraft creator Mojang previously backed out of a partnership that would have added Oculus Rift support to Minecraft, citing unease over Facebook’s then-recent purchase of the hardware developer.
We were in talks about maybe bringing a version of Minecraft to Oculus,” Mojang founder Markus “Notch” Persson stated in 2014. “I just cancelled that deal. Facebook creeps me out.”
Persson’s departure last year, spurred by a Microsoft buyout, apparently reopened negotiations between Mojang and Oculus. Microsoft’s purchase of studio Mojang saw Minecraft expand to several new platforms in the months afterward, including Microsoft’s own Windows 10 and Windows Phone operating systems.
“[Minecraft] is a game that has found its audience on touch devices, on phones, on iPads, on console, and obviously its true home, on PC,” Microsoft’s head of Xbox Phil Spencer said following the purchase. “Whether you’re playing on an Xbox, whether you’re playing on a PlayStation, an Android, iOS device … our goal is to continue to evolve and innovate across all of those platforms.”
The Windows 10 version of Minecraft has been a particular focus for Microsoft in the months after the Mojang buyout. Microsoft recently introduced cross-platform multiplayer functionality for Minecraft‘s Windows 10 edition, allowing players to team up with friends who own Minecraft: Pocket Edition for iOS, Android, and Windows Phone devices. The mobile version of Minecraft was also greatly expanded in what Microsoft called “the biggest update for Minecraft: Pocket Edition to date.”
A launch date for Minecraft‘s Oculus Rift support was not announced.
