Minecraft has become a staple, evergreen game over the years, and it indeed has a rich history. Prima Games wants to pay homage to Minecraft by telling our readers when Minecraft was originally made, and how its development went on. Naturally, if you are a Minecraft player, you understand that Minecraft development never stops, is never complete, and that the game constantly improves. We hope you’ll enjoy this trip down memory lane, to see how things have changed over the years and how far we’ve gotten.
When was Minecraft Released?
In this article, we’ll cover Java Edition only. We fully respect the Bedrock and Pocket editions and we’re not “Java Purists” or anything of the sort, but Java is still the version of Minecraft that started it all. Should our readers take a big interest in this piece, we’ll cover Bedrock and Pocket editions separately.
Related: Best Minecraft Prison Servers
- Originally, the first “Pre-Classic” version of Minecraft, called “Cave Game” was made on May 10, 2009.
- Classic Minecraft (available to the public) was released on May 16th, 2009. You can check it out here for free within your web browser, and even have friends join you. It’s basically a very primitive Creative Mode. But hey, it was a start of something great!
- The Indev version was released on December 23, 2009
- The Infdev version was released on February 27, 2010
- The alpha version was released on June 30, 2010
- The beta version was released on December 20, 2010
- The official v1.0 Release of Minecraft happened on November 18, 2011, which most people would count as the date when Minecraft was officially made.
- Minecraft Version 1.1 was released on January 12, 2012
- Minecraft Version 1.2.1 was released on March 1, 2012
- Minecraft Version 1.3.1 was released on August 1, 2012
- Minecraft Version 1.4.2 – The Pretty Scary Update was released on October 25, 2012
- Minecraft Version 1.5 – Redstone Update was released on March 13, 2013
- Minecraft Version 1.6 – The Horse Update was released on July 1, 2013
- Minecraft Version 1.7 – The Update That Changed The World was released on October 25, 2013
- Minecraft Version 1.8 – The Bountiful Update was released on September 2, 2014
- Minecraft Version 1.9 – The Combat Update was released on February 29, 2016
- Minecraft Version 1.10 – The Frostburn Update was released on June 8, 2016
- Minecraft Version 1.11 – The Exploration Update was released on November 14, 2016
- Minecraft Version 1.12 – The World of Color Update was released on June 7, 2017
- Minecraft Version 1.13 – The Update Aquatic was released on July 18, 2018
- Minecraft Version 1.14 – Village and Pillage was released on April 23, 2019
- Minecraft Version 1.15 – Buzzy Bees was released on December 10, 2019
- Minecraft Version 1.16 – Nether Update was released on June 23, 2020
- Minecraft Version 1.17 – Caves and Cliffs Part 1 was released on June 8th, 2021
- Minecraft Version 1.18 – Caves and Cliffs Part 2 was released on November 30th, 2021
- Minecraft Version 1.19 – The Wild Update was released on June 7th, 2022
- Minecraft Version 1.20 is in the works, doesn’t have a name yet, and is definitely going to arrive in 2023.
Here’s an Interactive Timeline that we’ve found for Minecraft.
If you want to hit up Minecraft in VR, check out How to Play Minecraft on Oculus Quest 2 (2023).
Thank you for visiting Prima Games. Make sure to check out our Minecraft tag under the article for more cool stuff about Minecraft. See you soon!
