Minecraft players are recreating China’s rapidly built Wuhan hospitals

Minecraft gamers are using online blueprints to digitally rebuild two medical centers used to help fight the coronavirus

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The Ancient Stone is a prolific Minecraft art studio that recreated Huoshenshan and Leishenshan medical centers in Minecraft just days after the construction concluded in real life. (Picture: The Ancient Stone/Bilibili)

Josh Ye

Published: 5:00am, 20 Feb 2020Updated: 5:37am, 20 Feb 2020

This article originally appeared on ABACUS

Many people in China have turned to video games to pass time as the coronavirus outbreak keeps cities locked down. And some gamers are finding creative uses for their time. Multiple Minecraft players have taken to digitally recreating the construction of the new medical centres in Wuhan that were rapidly erected to help fight the spread of the deadly Covid-19 disease.

Earlier this month, two temporary medical centres were built in just over a week in the central city of Wuhan, the epicentre of the outbreak. As many as 40 million people reportedly tuned in to a live stream of thousands of workers toiling day and night to build the structures from the ground up.

To pay tribute to these projects, Chinese Minecraft players recreated the medical centres in the game using blueprints of the two buildings that the government made available online.

One Minecraft art group named the Ancient Stone was among the first to have recreated the Huoshenshan and Leishenshan medical centers. In reality, the two facilities together span over 113,000 square meters (1.2 million square feet) and can provide more than 2,500 beds. The group didn’t say how many blocks it took to recreate the buildings in Minecraft.

You can tell that the creator has paid attention to even the smallest of details. (Picture: The Ancient Stone/Bilibili)

Still, a video the Ancient Stone released on Bilibili shows a detailed (albeit blocky) digital structure that appears to be surprisingly faithful to the actual buildings. The virtual recreations include intensive-care units, patient wards and hundreds of medical professionals.