Japanese School Cancels Graduation, Students Hold It Inside Minecraft Instead

Japanese students are using Minecraft to enjoy their school graduation virtually, in spite of a coronavirus lockdown. Japanese schools have been closed for over two weeks due to COVID-19 and, with the Japanese school year ending in March, it's meant many students won't have their graduation ceremonies, according to SoraNews24. However, graduates from one elementary school found they could use Minecraft to create their own ceremony. Without any school or parental oversight, kids designed their own assembly hall, and gathered on a server to play out their graduation online. SoraNews24 translated the following tweets as: "They spent all day online together playing games and laughing. I’m glad they all had fun," and "The assembly hall is also really well made."

会場もすごくよく出来ている。 pic.twitter.com/HKjVCaOmOf

— 柏原周平 (@backyennew) March 14, 2020

Minecraft continues to be a great platform for people to let their imagination run free in all sorts of ways. This is just another example of how it's more than a game for people all around the world. It's only a matter of time until more creative ideas like these arise with various game events frequently being cancelled. Many companies are already planning digital alternatives as Microsoft announced earlier this month. [widget path="global/article/imagegallery" parameters="albumSlug=every-2020-video-game-release&captions=true"] Other ways people are using Minecraft as a world parallel to ours include a recently created virtual library for fighting censorship. If you're looking for more Minecraft content, be sure to check out the Nether update and our Minecraft wiki for guides. [poilib element="accentDivider"] Jeffrey Lerman is a Freelance News Writer for IGN. You can follow him on Twitter @Snakester95.