Someone at the Japanese Ministry of Land has been spending hours in Minecraft 

An official YouTube account affiliated with Japan’s Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism recently uploaded a video that demonstrates a dam project that is currently underway in southwestern Japan. There’s something unique about the recreation though – it has been created entirely using Minecraft, and the level of detail in the build is quite astonishing. 

The video, uploaded on November 17 and titled “We tried making the Tatsuno Dam in Minecraft!,” shows a vast and detailed reconstruction of the Tatsuno Dam project in Kumamoto, Japan. The Tatsuno Dam is a flood control dam that is planned to start operating in 2024. 

The Minecraft recreation includes the entire damn embankment, as well as the surrounding terrain, vegetation and roads of the area. Although no information has been revealed as to how the recreation was made, it’s possible that 3D topographical data was used in the process. Perhaps due to View Distance settings or sluggish rendering, we don’t get to see that far into the distance, but it’s still apparent that the build is quite extensive. 

The fact that the video was posted by none other than Japan’s Ministry of Land has resulted in a significant response from the Japanese online community, with users praising the quality and scale of the build, as well as the video itself – the vibe of the imagery and the song used give it the nostalgic feel you would expect from a 2016 Minecraft gameplay video. At the same time, some users were perplexed with the seemingly low performance PC used for the project, given the modest View Distance and chunky rendering. 

The Minecraft video of the Tatsuno Dam was preceded by a Tatsuno Dam Augmented Reality app and similar publicity campaigns, and it seems that the dam’s Construction Office plans to release the Minecraft world data to the public on their official website in the near future. 

Written by. Amber V based on the original Japanese article (original article’s publication date: 2023-11-21 18:03 JST)