Since 2011, Minecraft player KurtJMac has been chronicling his epic odyssey toward the game’s fabled glitched outer limits through an online series titled Far Lands or Bust. This week, KurtJMac achieved a significant milestone as he passed through the boundary marking the final floating point error in the game.
In earlier versions of Minecraft: Java Edition, venturing far enough from the spawn point led to encountering a region where terrain generation became corrupted, resulting in bizarre and impossible landscapes. This boundary, famously dubbed the Far Lands, was a product of glitches that were patched out well before Minecraft’s official 1.0 release. Despite this, the Far Lands have attained legendary status, even being referenced in games like Super Smash Bros. Ultimate.
If you’re familiar with the Far Lands, you likely know about the Far Lands or Bust series, a Twitch and YouTube broadcast following KurtJMac’s trek to the edge of the Minecraft world. Spanning over 12.5 million blocks from the starting point to the Far Lands, the journey entails thousands of hours of walking. KurtJMac utilizes each season of his series to raise charity donations, setting a new goal with each leg of the adventure. By the end of Season 10 in May 2023, KurtJMac had covered 7,396,358 blocks, equivalent to 58.9% of the journey.
Recently, KurtJMac achieved a remarkable milestone by crossing 8,388,608 blocks, which marks the final floating point precision error in Minecraft. This milestone was captured live on Twitch, where KurtJMac’s movement began to exhibit noticeable jitteriness beyond this threshold due to the game’s legacy programming quirks.
In a revealing Twitch clip, KurtJMac experiences the moment of realization as he ventures past this critical boundary. He notices the altered movement and remarks, “Something’s changed.” Despite the unusual jumpiness in movement, he remains remarkably composed, observing, “That’s not so bad; it seems like we’re moving in slow motion.”
When KurtJMac eventually reaches the Far Lands, he will join a handful of players who have accomplished this feat. Notably, in 2022, one player spent 2,500 hours traversing to the Far Lands, only to meet a sudden demise upon arrival. A comprehensive list of Far Lands expeditions is available on the Premium Minecraft Blog for those interested in tracking these monumental journeys.