XBOX – BUILDING HISTORY

In The Wild Update, Minecraft introduced the Ancient City, a new setting filled with the ruins of a bygone age. So to launch it, we brought a real ancient ruin into the game. Partnering with the National Trust, we created a campaign that not only reignited fans' excitement for Minecraft, but one of the UK's most historic castles. SABRE Awards – Certificate of Excellence; SABRE Awards – Winner (Consumer Marketing); Cresta – Bronze; AdForum PHNX – Bronze; Digital Impact Awards – Silver; Gerety Awards – 2x Shortlist.

CASE STUDY

Working with Minecraft specialists Blockbuilders, we used GPS drone data to construct a model of the ruin, exactly as it stands today. This acted as a base for our build challenge to restore the castle to its former glory.

Next we brought in Minecraft creator Grian and TikTok historian Alice Loxton to combine their expertise and recreate the castle exactly as it would have looked in the 17th century. We documented the process in a YouTube content film that has racked up more than 1.1million views.

Having inspired fans, we hosted the Corfe Castle ruin on an open access Minecraft server and invited our audience to get creative with their own builds. Over the campaign, they built 1905 castles, with an average playtime of 8 hours, 48 minutes, and a total playtime of 1 month, 1 day, 16 hours and 26 minutes.

After bringing Corfe Castle to Minecraft, we brought Minecraft to the castle. Playing on Xbox, visitors could digitally reconstruct the castle, from the base of the ruin itself.