Meet the man walking to the end of Minecraft

Everyone plays Minecraft differently. Some like to explore, some like to settle down and farm, some like to undertake massive building projects, some like to destroy others' massive building projects. Kurt J. Mac heard the huge world has an end point, and decided to walk there.

In an interview with The New Yorker, Mac discussed the origins, goals and reception of his journey, which began on March 28, 2011. It was around that same time that Notch wrote a blog post about what he called the Far Lands, a distance at which the game has procedurally rendered more terrain than it can handle, and begins to bug out and create weird shapes. He decided that issues wouldn't affect many players, and left them in.

"My gut feeling is that nobody ever has (gone there) so far, and nobody will. Walking that far will take a very long time. Besides, the bugs add mystery and charisma to the Far Lands," Notch wrote.

Mac took that as a challenge, equipped himself and started trekking. “In my ignorance, I thought the journey might take a year or so,” he said. “Had I known that the Far Lands were so many thousands of kilometres away, I might have been more hesitant.” In his three-year journey so far, Mac has walked the equivalent of 700km - and he's still about 12,000km away from his destination.

But it's not about the journey, Mac insists. There are a lot of landmarks to stumble onto, and the emergent stories through his interaction with the world keep things interesting.

Mac documents his journey on his YouTube channel, Far Lands or Bust!

Thanks, Kotaku.