Minecraft drops you into a world built entirely from blocks you can mine, place and rebuild. Bedrock Edition is the cross-platform version, written in C++ and shared across Windows, Android, iOS, Xbox, PlayStation and Nintendo Switch — which is what lets players on all of those join the same world together.
Two modes anchor the game. Survival has you gathering wood and stone, crafting tools, managing hunger and building shelter before the first night brings hostile mobs; progression runs from stone through iron and diamond to a journey into the Nether and a final confrontation in the End. Creative gives you every block, flight and no threats, and is where most large builds get made.
Worlds are generated procedurally and are effectively endless, spanning biomes from deserts and jungles to deep caves and ocean monuments. Redstone — the game's wiring system — supports working logic circuits, which players have used to build calculators and functioning computers inside the game.
Bedrock Edition includes a marketplace for skins, texture packs and creator-made worlds, and supports Realms, a paid subscription for a persistent server that stays online when you are not. It is a paid game: one purchase per platform, with no subscription required to play.
Note that Bedrock is distinct from Java Edition, the original Windows, macOS and Linux version. Java has a deeper modding scene; Bedrock has the cross-platform reach. They are not compatible with each other.
Mojang AB, part of Xbox Game Studios, has developed Minecraft since 2009 and ships regular free content updates alongside the paid base game.
