Welcome to the official guide for setting up Minecraft: Pi Edition: Reborn (also known as MCPI-Reborn)! This document will help you through the installation and setup process.

System Requirements

MCPI-Reborn requires support for OpenGL ES v2.0 (unlike the original game, which used OpenGL ES v1.1). It also only supports Linux-based systems.

In addition, while the original game could only be run on the Raspberry Pi, MCPI-Reborn is much more flexible. It supports running on 32-bit ARM (known as armhf), 64-bit ARM (known as arm64), and 64-bit x86 (known as amd64).

Installation

There are three supported ways to install MCPI-Reborn.

AppImage

The first supported way to install MCPI-Reborn is with an AppImage. An AppImage is a portable application format that allows users to run software without installation.

To run MCPI-Reborn, all you need to do is download the latest AppImage for your architecture and run it.

More details can be found here.

Additional System Requirements

The AppImage requires Debian Bullseye or higher. This is equivalent to Ubuntu 20.04.

It also requires some additional packages. To install them, run:

sudo apt install -y libfuse2 libgtk-3-0 libopenal1

Flatpak

The next method is the official Flatpak. This method has the additional benefit of built-in sandboxing. Unfortunately, it does not support 32-bit ARM systems.

It can be installed through Flathub.

Pi-Apps

The final supported method is Pi-Apps. It is a "well-maintained collection of app installation-scripts" that includes support for MCPI-Reborn.

The list of systems supported by Pi-Apps can be found here.

Managing Game Data

Just as regular Minecraft stores game data at ~/.minecraft, MCPI-Reborn uses ~/.minecraft-pi¹. This is the profile directory and is where your worlds, screenshots, and game settings are stored.

The profile directory can easily be accessed by opening MCPI-Reborn and going to Options -> Reborn -> Profile Directory.

Sound

One of MCPI-Reborn's most important modifications is the addition of a sound engine. However, due to copyright limitations, Minecraft's sounds cannot be distributed with MCPI-Reborn and must be installed manually.

Fortunately, installing the sound data is simple:

Obtain a valid Minecraft: Pocket Edition v0.6.1² APK file.
Extract lib/*/libminecraftpe.so from the APK.
Create the directory <Profile Directory>/overrides if it does not already exist.
Copy libminecraftpe.so into <Profile Directory>/overrides.
Sound should now be fully functional!

Custom Textures

MCPI-Reborn allows users to easily use custom textures through the use of an "overrides directory." Any files placed in this directory will automatically replace their equivalent file in MCPI-Reborn.

For instance, to override data/images/terrain.png, you would copy the replacement file to <Overrides Folder>/images/terrain.png.

The overrides directory is located at <Profile Directory>/overrides.

Discord

If you have any questions or just want to talk about Minecraft: Pi Edition, there is an official Discord server!

When using the Flatpak, the profile directory is located at ~/.var/app/com.thebrokenrail.MCPIReborn/.minecraft-pi. ↩︎
This is not a strict requirement; a Minecraft: Pocket Edition v0.8.1 APK would likely work, but it is not guaranteed. ↩︎

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Getting Started