You can now play Minecraft: Bedrock Edition on a… Chromebook?

Chromebooks have a reputation for being entry-level devices primarily for students to use in class, but they’re actually not that bad now. With improvements on both the hardware and software side of things, Chromebooks are now more powerful than ever, and if you’ve ever wanted to game on it, you might be pleased to hear that developers Mojang is bringing the popular game Minecraft to Chromebooks.

Okay well technically, you could already run Minecraft on a Chromebook before this. However, that required players to get the Minecraft: Education Edition which needs to be tied to either a school license or an Office 365 Education account. This time though, it’s the full Minecraft: Bedrock Edition version of the game, which brings with it cross-platform support that’ll let Chromebook users play with their friends on other platforms.

“It shouldn’t come as a surprise that we believe mining and crafting is even more fun when we can all do it together. That’s why we’re excited to announce that today, an early access version of Minecraft: Bedrock Edition is releasing on Chromebook, featuring cross-device play with friends, access to Minecraft Marketplace, and the ability to play on Realms!” – Sophie Austin, Mojang

This has seemingly been made possible thanks to Android support of ChromeOS. Prior to this, Chromebook users would either have to play the Education Edition or use some hacky workarounds to get the game proper to work. With Mojang now bringing Minecraft: Bedrock Edition to ChromeOS, you’ll be able to play the game on your Chromebook as long as you meet these minimum requirements:

• Operating System: ChromeOS 111
• System Architecture: 64-bit (x86_64, arm64-v8a)
• Processor: Intel Celeron N4500, Intel i3-7130U, Mediatek MT8183, Qualcomm SC7180 or better
• Memory: 4 GB RAM
• Storage: Minimum of 1 GB game installation, maps, and other files

If you’re a Chromebook user who would like to hop onto Minecraft yourself, you should note that it’s still only in early access for now. Nevertheless, as long as you meet those minimum requirements, you’ll be able to get the game off the Google Play Store. For more information on Minecraft: Bedrock Edition’s launch on Chromebooks, you can check out Mojang’s full post about it here.