Early access version of Minecraft: Education Edition launches for free

Earlier this year, Microsoft purchased MinecraftEdu and revealed it would be repurposing the sandbox builder as an educational tool in the form of Minecraft: Education Edition. 

Now, following a beta program featuring over 100 schools from 30 countries, the early access version of the game has been made available for free for educators around the world. 

Education Edition encourages students to collaborate and work together to overcome problems and solve puzzles inside Minecraft. 

The game lets a classroom of up to 30 students play in the same world without the need for a separate server, and features a range of sample lessons to help teachers understand how to effectively integrate the game into the school environment. 

For more information, including how to download the game, check out the full announcement on the Education Edition website. 

As for how much the launch version of Education Edition will cost, Microsoft says it will publish volume pricing information for school-wide deployments soon.