Ever wanted to walk around Westeros? Actually visit the immaculate designs of great buildings such as The Eyrie, Winterfell and Kings Landing? A Minecraft server dedicated to this, allows exactly that.
When entering the server that’s replicating Westeros, you would never have grasped the size of the project. The Kingsroad is as tireless and a never-ending path, as many have stressed in the series and books. From The Wall to Dorne, this map is complete. Over 500 square miles, it spans in comparison to the size of Los Angeles with 59,000 blocks x 22,000 blocks.
At first, the project was run by only Will Blew, co-creator and technical lead and Jacob Granberry, project lead in 2011. WesterosCraft quickly grew from a few dozen builders to a whole international community including hundreds of active builders and a forum to back it. Granberry admitted that he spends 20-30 hours a week on the project, alongside his day job – “It’s become more and more of a part-time job than a hobby.”
WesterosCraft has become an entire world that brings a still life of the HBO hit series, Game of Thrones. You can walk the entire length of The Wall, fall from the Mood Door of The Eyrie, or roam the rooftops of Winterfell – just try not to fall.
But the up most inspiring and thrilling sight to see, is King’s Landing. The city includes 3,000 buildings along with the Sept of Baelor, the docks at Blackwater Bay and the Red Keep. Even the sewer system running through tunnels beneath the city.
Granberry describes the community as a vibrant and rewarding part of his work and essential to the success of the project. If you with to recreate scenes with your friends or walk the paths of your favourite characters, WesterosCraft is your place to go. Granberry explains “Some of the stuff that’s been built hasn’t even been mentioned in the books. It’s [only] on a map that George R. R. Martin released. But it’s been built [in WesterosCraft] and you can go visit that in-game.” Even the smallest villages that have minimal airtime in Game of Thrones, are made in the server.
The builders working on the project are very, very pressured upon to build something amazing. They won’t settle for less. A tutorial called ‘IKEA’, has a section labelled ‘NEVER EVER’, with a sign next to a bookcase reading “Westeros has a literacy rate of 0.1%, limiting it to the upper classes. When I see books in a low/middle class home, I want to gouge my eyes out.” Other things such as how to add chimneys to furnaces, allowing proper ventilation and safety because “wood burns” – not that it does in Minecraft, but because it would in reality. Talk about attention to detail.
Another guide titled “WesterosCraft Guide to Authentic Canon Ship Building” lists categories of various ships with their proper titles and appropriate uses, many of which are accessible. Even here there it is perfectly detailed – “Under no circumstances should a ship have 4 masts,” the guide reads. “Four masted sailing ships are modern sailing vessels that did not come about until the 18th century.” If you travel down to Pyke in the Iron Islands, you will see the a harbor full of ships, with three masts or less, of course.
