Mojang's original version of Minecraft, which millions play, will now require a Microsoft to play for security's sake, Microsoft says.

Java is quite platform-independent and mostly upwards compatible, so it is common to compile a piece of code using a given J2SE version and expect it to work in later JVM versions.

Minecraft runs on Java version 17 as of this pre-release – and you can expect the same to be true of the live version of Java Edition once 1.18 officially lands.

The forthcoming Minecraft: Education Edition, written in C++, looks faster and smoother than the old Java version, but won't be compatible with all the old mods. If Microsoft mis-handles the ...