Nvidia Built A Giant Winter Wonderland In Minecraft–Including Ray-Tracing

Nvidia is launching a huge new winter wonderland-themed Minecraft world today, showing off the potential of Minecraft with RTX, while also raising money for the Great Ormond Street Hospital Children’s Charity. The world can be downloaded for free as long as players have the latest version of Minecraft for Windows installed.

The Nvidia RTX Winter Wonder World makes use of Minecraft with RTX, which Nvidia launched just over a year ago. The new holiday-themed world takes plenty of opportunities to show off just how gorgeous ray-tracing looks, even with Minecraft’s block-based graphical style.

The world consists of three huge snowglobes, each containing its own unique setting–one, a winter wonderland, one Santa’s village, and the third a winter setting. All three combined make up a virtual area of 38 acres, and took Minecraft builder Ushio Tokura over 300 hours to build.

The world contains interactive elements including roller coasters, an ice-skating lake, and a petting zoo, as well as a handful of playable storylines and quests. The world’s charity tie-in can be found in its full-sized recreation of the Great Ormond Street Hospital building, where players can find a QR code to donate to the hospital’s charity.