Watch Polygon's new Minecraft documentary about the kids rebuilding New York

Watch Polygon’s new documentary Battle of the Boroughs: The Kids Who Build New York City in Minecraft

It can be easy to feel hopeless about the state of the world right now. But every time I walked out of a practice or competitive session of Battle of the Boroughs, I felt like things might be OK.

Battle of the Boroughs is New York City’s public school Minecraft tournament. Teams of kids across the city compete to create builds that reflect and address real problems that the city is facing. What would the city look like if everyone had equal access to healthy food? To renewable energy? What if the Q train connected to Randall’s Island? The kids are reimagining the city and building it in Minecraft Education.

Polygon’s new documentary Battle of the Boroughs: The Kids Who Build New York City in Minecraft follows the 2025 Battle of the Boroughs competition, from early submissions through the city-wide finals held during the NYC Video Game Festival.

We visited schools, spoke to teachers, organizers and kids, saw the builds, and witnessed the finals. What we saw was an inspiration. Teachers, parents, and educators working overtime to create a tournament that challenges kids and gives them an opportunity to shine under pressure, in front of a crowd. They practice teamwork, coding, civic planning, and above all, they are given the power to imagine a city that works for them.

“We try to draw as much from their own neighborhood — one of the previous practice prompts we did was building a school using sustainable materials,” teacher Patricia Thams told me. “It’s like, imagine this area. Imagine what you would want.”

In another school I visited, the students were redesigning their school with a rooftop garden where students could access fresh-grown vegetables and just hang out. At another school in upper Manhattan, I was told that student input would be taken into account during remodeling.

Empowering students to lead

It may all start at school, but the goal is for this empowerment to resonate through the students’ civic lives.

During the semifinals and finals, the prompts in 2025 took kids out of their neighborhoods and asked them to renovate New York City landmarks like Governor’s Island.

For another teacher, Cynthia Andrade, the competition is a sort-of capstone of her students’ development. They started school a few years ago as ESL students, and ended it giving fluent presentations on their Minecraft builds in front of crowds of people.

“My biggest reward and winning wise is seeing that they're able to stand up in front of an audience, talk freely about what they're doing,” she said. “And I tell them, I'm like, "I hope to see you grow up into the young ladies and the young men you will become because you guys are going to do great things. I know it."

You can watch the full, 40-minute documentary we produced about Battle of the Boroughs above on YouTube. The next Battle of the Boroughs finals will take place on May 9 at the Convene, as part of the NYC Video Game Festival, and for those who can't make it, the entire thing will be streamed on Twitch.