Who is Herobrine? Meet Minecraft’s greatest legend

Even those who are not big fans of Minecraft You may have heard about the legend of Herobrine. The character gained a practically folkloric fame when the game was still in Alpha and rumors of his appearances began to appear on forums. At that time, it was still difficult to know exactly what was true and what was made up just to scare younger fans of Minecraftafter all, even Mojang joined in the fun.

But so many years later, with the explosion of Minecraft Throughout the world, this legend has been left behind and has even been somewhat forgotten by younger generations. Therefore, not everyone knows who Herobrine really is, how he came to be, and whether he was ever real or if he has always been a legend. To explain this to you properly and remind you of one of the greatest icons in gaming, we have prepared a special article about Herobrine. Check out everything in detail below!

Who is Herobrine?

Following his main legend, Herobrine is a type of ghost that haunts the singleplayer worlds of Minecraftwhere there should be no one but you. He has a very similar appearance to Steve’s default skin, but you can identify him by his eyes, which are completely white. According to legend, he can appear watching you from a distance in Steve’s skin or in the form of an animal (such as a cow, pig or sheep), but he can also leave traces of his presence by creating random tunnels in your mines.

A little more forgotten today, the legend of Herobrine terrified many children in 2010Source: Mojang/Reproduction

Apparently, no player has reported being attacked by Herobrine, even at the height of his popularity. Instead, all the stories talk about is how the mysterious figure prefers to observe players from afar, only to disappear soon after. Still, it’s more than enough to make anyone fearful.

While some players believed that Herobrine was the ghost of a player who had died, others went even further and said that he was the dead brother of Markus “Notch” Persson, the creator of Minecraft. The most skeptical players at the time argued that if the apparition was real, it must have been just a virus or even a joke on the part of the developers.

The legend became even bigger and more relevant when Mojang itself started including the message “We’ve removed Herobrine” in the patch notes for the game’s updates. This message has appeared numerous times since the beta, including in the most recent updates of version 1.20.

Origin of Herobrine

Despite being an extremely well-known legend, many people have no idea of ​​the origin of Herobrine, since the most common thing was to only know the story of a ghost with white eyes haunting Minecraft. The official timeline is as follows:

White eyes

It all started on July 31, 2010, when a forum user Minecraft (known as Flaky) posted a story from a player he had seen on 4chan. The story consisted of mysterious events that this player was witnessing in his world of Minecraft after listening to the music album known as “13”, one of the first added to the game.

According to the report, the player began to notice many strange sounds in the caves he explored, in addition to noticing that his torches were disappearing, that doors were closing by themselves and that other things were happening without explanation, as if his game was haunted. The highlight of all this is that the player was seeing two white eyes in the dark at various times while he was underground. To increase the horror of the post, a YouTube video was added in the comments, in which it was possible to see the cave and the white eyes while the song “13” played in the background.

This story is considered to be the first creepypasta of Minecraft with the concept of a character with white eyes watching the player from a distance. The next day, another forum user (known as Endorphin) made a post talking about the cave noises of Minecraft and how a “pair of white eyes” appeared every time these sounds played in the game. The video we mentioned earlier was reposted as an example, leading more people to believe the story.

Believe it or not, this dark image with two white pixels in the left corner may be responsible for the origin of HerobrineSource: Curchack Curchack/Reproduction

For context, the sounds these posts are referring to are the ambient sounds that were added to the game’s caves in Alpha v1.0.3. Back then, Notch would often make surprise updates and not always tell you what had changed in the game, so it was common to encounter things like strange sounds popping up out of nowhere and having no idea what was happening in the game. Obviously, this left plenty of room for stories like this to be told freely, misleading younger players.

A figure in the mist

Throughout August 2010, the story of the white-eyed creature spread across the forums and quickly received different versions. Since much of the legend arose organically on forums, it is difficult to pinpoint exact dates of when certain things happened. We know that everything originated during this month, but much of the records have been lost over time. What is known for sure is that on the 19th of this month, a Twitter user tagged Notch on social media saying that someone had created a story about his brother Herobrine and that he should put him in the game.

Nothing was scarier in 2010 than the possibility of encountering Herobrine in the gameSource: Mojang/Reproduction

The next two appearances that would make Herobrine so famous would occur before the end of the month: in a live broadcast and in the form of a creepypasta. Unfortunately, the exact origin of the character’s most famous creepypasta is unknown, but there are records of it both on the 30th (in a forum comment) and on the 31st of August (on 4chan).

What is known is that the creepypasta was posted as a report by a player who had seen Steve’s model as white eyes watching him from a distance in the fog of a singleplayer Minecraft map. Curious, the player went to the game’s official forum to talk about the matter, but a user named “Herobrine” had deleted his posts and told him to stop. When talking to another player via email, he would discover that “Herobrine” was the name used by Notch’s deceased brother on the internet.

This image is the first time many people have seen Herobrine.Source: Minecraft Fandom/Reproduction

The post was accompanied by the image above, which would be proof of the encounter with the mysterious figure in the mist. This is probably the most famous photo from the legend of Herobrine and the first one that many people saw when they originally learned about the subject.

The broadcast we mentioned earlier took place on August 30th. On that day, streamer Copeland was playing Minecraft normally until, suddenly, he found Herobrine in one of his buildings, getting a big scare. The streamer ended the broadcast shortly after this appearance and went to the forum to report what happened. The clip of the moment became quite famous and consolidated the legend of Herobrine along with the creepypasta.

The lost clip

One of the most interesting facts is that the clip of the moment when Copeland meets Herobrine was lost shortly after. As a result, only screenshots of the moment survived to retell the story, which was soon proven to be a fake situation created by Copeland himself. The truth is that Herobrine’s appearance was just a painting of Steve’s model without the pupils in his eyes.

Still, many fans of Minecraft People have been searching for the footage from the broadcast for years, as it was an important part of the Herobrine legend. It was only recently that the old broadcast resurfaced on YouTube, as you can see in the video above. Nowadays, the moment is much more comical knowing that it was all fake, but it is still an interesting thing to watch knowing the controversy it caused at the time.

Herobrine in Minecraft

Even though Herobrine’s appearances in Minecraft are fake, that doesn’t mean you can’t have this icon in your game in some way. For those who love the creepypasta that made the character famous, it is possible to download the seed used in the famous screenshot in which he appears. This world was found and made available on the Minecraft at Home website, so you can make your childhood dream (or nightmare) come true if you want to visit it.

Another alternative is to download the mod “The Herobrine Horror Mod”, which places the character in your world. With the mod installed, Herobrine appears randomly to scare you, strange structures can form, there is a chance that your character will have nightmares when sleeping and there is even a completely new biome with a horror theme.

After all, is Herobrine real?

To the dismay of some and the relief of many children of the 2010s, Herobrine was never real and is just a creepypasta created at the time that Minecraft was starting to become popular. In general, most of the people who created stories about him have already admitted that they made it all up because they wanted to be part of the legend that was starting to form. Furthermore, Notch himself has commented a few times that he does not have a brother and that, obviously, he did not include a ghost in his game.

Of course, Herobrine has become so big that he has already become part of the game in some way, whether in official art from past events, in patch notes, or even in the form of mods that add the character to Minecraft. While the chances of this happening are pretty slim, I can’t say it wouldn’t be a lot of fun if Mojang decided to add Herobrine as a very rare appearance in Minecrafteven if it was just in singleplayer worlds.

And you, did you believe in the existence of Herobrine when the legend began to circulate? Leave a comment on Voxel’s social networks telling us how you found out about the fictional ghost!