Minecraft Earth lets you burn down your creations with your friends inside

Two years ago I remember standing outside the back of the Los Angeles Convention Centre, trying out a new feature called “raiding” in Pokémon Go. It was about 30C, the 4G was wonky and the feature was still in beta. I thought, huh, this will never catch on. Now, I raid most days.

This year, I’m somewhere in the bowels of the Microsoft Theatre, a block (pun intended) down the road, and I’m playing something which feels even more experimental. Minecraft Earth is, in many ways, Microsoft’s own take on the Pokémon Go formula. But it’s also completely different.

The demo we try features none of Minecraft Earth’s location-based gameplay which will form much of the final game. That will be the bit most similar to Pokémon Go – or indeed, this week’s new launch Harry Potter: Wizards Unite – where you wander around your neighbourhood and collect things: namely, blocks to build stuff with.

Instead, this trial version is all about the building stuff – the ability to place blocks at the same time as others to create a collaboratively-made model, and then to expand it until it is room-sized, and explore within using AR.