Minecraft Gallipoli tribute misses the mark

It’s been over 100 years since the Anzacs first landed at Gallipoli. They spent eight months under constant attack from Turkish sniper fire, frequent gas and mortar strikes and faced a devastating wave of disease caused by the unsanitary living conditions. The steep and treacherous terrain of the Gallipoli peninsula became the final resting place for 2779 New Zealanders and 8700 Australians.

And now you can explore this battlefield in Minecraft.

Initially created by Auckland Museum in collaboration with the students from Alfriston college for a 2015 exhibit on the Gallipoli landings, the Gallipoli in Minecraft learning kit is also currently on display as part of the Waikato Museum’s World War I centenary exhibition, For Us They Fell,  as well as being available for download on the Auckland Museum’s website.

The learning kit consists of the Minecraft map itself, which depicts a variety of important locations from Cape Helles to Anzac Cove, a texture pack which changes the look of Minecraft to allow for things like sandbags and machine guns (which are not in the base game) and finally a variety of skins for your Minecraft character (some depict allied soldiers while the rest depict Ottoman soldiers).

This is all incredibly well made, with an excellent attention to detail allowing as immersive an experience as Minecraft’s retro blocky surrounds can allow. But it just feels wrong. The infamous daisy patch has had its row of deadly accurate Ottoman machine gunners replaced with a single skeleton lazily taking pot shots at you as you casually stroll through no man’s land. The unsheltered locale of Anzac Cove feels empty without the dull boom of an artillery barrage impacting on the hill or the groans of men wrestling with a variety of diseases and wishing for nothing more than to go home.

The Gallipoli in Minecraft learning kit is not an educational resource. It’s a novelty. Sure there’s no harm in depicting what is often considered the birthplace of a nation by many people in both New Zealand and Australia. Art is art and it would be remiss to imply a lack of effort or complacency on the part of the Auckland Museum or of Alfriston College. But sadly the pack itself contains very little context for the locations it depicts. Some information can be found on the Auckland Museum website but the Waikato Museum fails to provide this in a connected way in its Minecraft exhibit. And while the resource kit is available to download at home it’s extremely unlikely that the majority of children (undeniably the resource kit’s target audience) will take advantage of the information, instead choosing to play around on the large battleships or the trenches the map provides. Unfortunately, the resource is more likely to further a child’s fascination with war rather than create a sense of understanding of its tragedies.

And I doubt that’s what the soldiers at Gallipoli would have wanted.