Exclusive: Minecraft Education Edition is based on Pocket Edition

When MinecraftEdu announced yesterday they had been purchased by Microsoft, they also announced a new 'Minecraft: Education Edition' to replace MinecraftEdu. According to MinecraftEdu's website, the new version will not be ready until "Summer 2016" and they will continue to support the existing MinecraftEdu software for the foreseeable future.

What we didn't know is where this new 'Education Edition' was coming from. The MinecraftEdu website said there would be no mod support on Education Edition, which meant it probably wasn't based on the Java-based PC Minecraft we've come to know and love.

We reached out to both Microsoft and MinecraftEdu for an answer, and one of the developers of MinecraftEdu was kind enough to respond:

Hey Corbin,

Thanks for contacting us!

I'm not sure if Microsoft has announced it anywhere yet but I'm pretty sure it's the PE/Windows 10 version they are using as the basis of the Education Edition. This is further reinforced by the fact that their FAQ states they won't be supporting mods (which makes us sad, MinecraftEdu is based on Forge).

Have a great week!

Best regards,

Mikael Uusi-Mäkelä

Learning developer

So there you have it. The new Pocket Edition/Windows 10 Edition base will allow Education Edition to be updated more quickly, but there's still a lot more questions we don't have the answers to. Will Education Edition support Windows, Mac, and Linux like MinecraftEdu does? If so, this would be the first time Microsoft has ever released a game for Linux. We shall have to see.

Author : Corbin Davenport

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