Minecraft: City mod is so lifelike it’s mistaken for real Japanese city 

A highly detailed Japanese city mod for Minecraft completely fooled some people recently, who thought it was a real place at first. Users took to X to express their amazement at the photorealistic levels of detail. 

Released in 2011, the sandbox game Minecraft has a large modding community who have released everything from new items to various quality of life patches that improve upon Minecraft’s signature blocky presentation. This particular impressive Minecraft mod is being developed by a group called the Suburban City Recreation Project. They have called the city that they created Misoshiru-shi, which means Miso Soup city. Like many real-life cities in Japan, Miso Soup City has its own YouTube channel, complete with a city introduction video. 

The pixels and Minecraft’s iconic blocky style are easily noticeable when watching the fictional city’s introduction video above. However, since the video was posted in early 2023, the mod team has been adding further improvements to the buildings and infrastructure. Looking at more recent screenshots, the sheer level of detail and realism makes it hard to tell that it’s not a real city. This is especially true when briefly looking at overhead shots (or without your glasses on…). Thus, the team’s efforts have attracted attention on X in Japan, where many people marveled at the level of detail. Some were momentarily fooled into thinking it was a real city and not a genius Minecraft creation.  

To further illustrate how realistic the Minecraft screenshots were, one user posted a real-life cityscape photo of Sapporo in Japan’s northernmost main island of Hokkaido as a comparison.  

It seems that the Suburban City Recreation Project will continue to refine their city mod as they posted a recruitment call on X on January 12, particularly looking for people who have training in residential construction.  

More images of Miso Soup City can be found on the official website.