Minecraft Alpha Version Was Missing For A Decade, But Someone Finally Found It

Minecraft alpha version 1.1.1, an extremely rare build of the game that was only available for a few hours back in 2010, has finally been recovered thanks to some digital sleuthing. Back in the early days of Minecraft–before it was the gaming behemoth that we know today–the game was often updated at a weekly or even daily clip, which could sometimes confuse players.

As a result of this, alpha version 1.1.1 was only available for three hours and 25 minutes before it was replaced with 1.1.2. This is because 1.1.1 introduced a nasty bug that could lead to the game becoming unresponsive, and Mojang stomped out the bug very quickly. Since it was known as a bugged version, most Minecraft players who downloaded the build quickly deleted it once they downloaded 1.1.2.

As a result, many in the community thought that it was lost forever, including those at the Omniarchive, which is a group dedicated to dredging up old versions of Minecraft. However, that changed when a digital archivist noticed that Twitter user @LunaSorcery had tweeted that she downloaded the new build on the day it came out. Luna dug around in an old external hard drive and managed to find the lost version of the game, which caused many hardcore Minecraft fans to jump for joy.

“Moral of the story: never delete anything,” Luna said in her tweet thread explaining the find. In other Minecraft news, the game recently received Sonic-themed DLC, including square rings. The game’s Caves and Cliffs update came out a few weeks ago, and it adds new mobs and blocks to the game.