Planet Earth III
Level design and environment art direction for a Minecraft Education world built with BBC Earth.
Year
2024
Scope
Environment & Level Design
Client
BBC Earth, Minecraft Education
Planet Earth III sends players into five real biomes, from the South African coastline to the Arctic tundra, to experience survival as both predator and prey through animals like the great white shark, musk ox, and African leopard.
Challenge
BBC's whole reason for the documentary is to capture these environments as they really are, so the brief demanded a level of geographic accuracy well beyond a typical game world. Locations for the five biomes and the Field Station hub were set by the BBC team, and every environment had to hold up against real reference.
Solution
I led environment art direction and level design across all five biomes and the hub, working directly with BBC Earth to get the details right. I built terrain from real height maps and satellite data using World Machine, alongside concept art, to make sure each biome matched its real world counterpart before it became a playable space.
Results
Launched January 2024 in 29 languages, available free on both Minecraft Education and Minecraft Marketplace. It follows Frozen Planet II, which set the record for most downloads in a single day for an educational Minecraft experience across 116 countries.
