Jade Empire

Covered in cherry blossom trees and jade-clad rooftops, the magnificent Xin Tiantang is a build made by French build team NewHeaven, with members from all around the world. Last year they created a staggering replica of the French art museum Louvre – a build that was featured here on minecraft.net.

Since its release, NewHeaven has worked tirelessly on this new project that has been massive in both scale and workforce. Their goal has been to create an Asian utopia, bringing together a variety of styles while maintaining a cohesive theme. And the meaning of its name? "New Heaven" in Chinese.

“[It] may sound cheesy at first, although it emphasizes on the fact that what we created is perhaps a reality that is too good to exist, a ‘new heaven’ if you wish,” the group tells me. With their shared love for Asian architecture, the goal was to create a map that paid tribute to the continent’s wide range of styles by combining their personal favourites into one single build.

“Asian architecture has always been widely popular and liked by most people – we were no exception,” says NewHeaven. “Some members in our team use it almost all the time. Xin Tiantang was a way for us to freely express our love towards this style. [It] was essentially a large canvas and everyone in the team was able to take part in its creation.”

Xin Tiantang portrays a flourishing Chinese empire with revolutionized agriculture and architecture. A massive palace of jade and bronze stands tall at the feet of a blue lake, while smaller villages are located on the countryside. The map measures 2500x2500 and had more than 20 people partake in its creation – from the terraforming of the landscape all the way to the fine tweaking at the very end of the build. Despite the size of the team, NewHeaven took an open approach to its design in order to involve as many as possible.

“[It] was actually started almost two years ago. What takes a bit of time is initially figuring out what style we will be doing and making the terrain. Once that is done, we do lots of testing on the side and like to assign certain areas to people that ask for them. Finally, when everything is in order, we start to properly build the map, which can take up to a year in this case. When we get close to the end, we like to have cinematics done on the map and above all timelapses.”

The aesthetics and architecture located on the map is a mix of several cultures and styles found in eastern Asia, such as China, India, and Japan. They also drew influence from Chinese culture by having organics inspired by the Zodiac calendar. Nothing was rushed, as NewHeaven’s builders were allowed to take their time completing their work without a strict timetable.

Speaking of deadlines, I better finish this article before Tom sees me, or he will have me cleaning toilets again...

Renders by Matteo Paolini, Iskillia, Splekh, Thomasesc, Fixy