The origins of Herobrine

“Minecraft” is overall a lighthearted game until players look into its dark legend: Herobrine.

Herobrine is an urban legend in the “Minecraft” community. He is a fan-created spooky noncanonical story—or a “creepypasta”—that was made in August of 2010.

Herobrine has many characteristics across the myths. He looks like Steve, the original “Minecraft” skin, but with all white eyes.

He can place and break blocks, just like the player. He’s known to place random floating blocks and to make crosses in the terrain around the world.

In some stories, he just follows the player and does not attack them, while in others he loots, griefs, and attacks the player. Other mobs are safe from Herobrine since he only targets the player.

The first mention of Herobrine was in August of 2010 in a post that was uploaded on 4chan’s paranormal board by a Minecraft player.

The player says they had just started a new survival world and were chopping wood. In the early versions of the game, there was a heavier fog and the player said they had the fog turned up so their PC would run smoother.

While cutting wood, the player saw something on the brink of the fog which they thought was a cow.

They ran towards it, only to see Herobrine standing in the fog staring at them. The player took a screen capture of him before trying to chase him down but he never caught him.

They uploaded this on 4chan to ask if other people had heard about it, and that’s when other sightings began. Ever since, people have posted pictures and videos of Herobrine sightings.

The story has been changed since with some people saying Herobrine is the dead brother of Notch, the creator of “Minecraft.”

Notch has denied this, and he posted about it on May 26, 2012.

“Getting loads of tweets and emails about Herobrine again,” his post read. “I don’t have a dead brother, and he never was in the game. Not real. Never was.”

More solid evidence that Herobrine is not real is the “Herobrine Removed” message that appeared in their patch notes until recently. Further, other “Minecraft” developers have stated that Herobrine is just a myth.

A few members of the community who wanted this myth added into their worlds have made mods that players can add onto their games that add Herobrine into their “Minecraft” worlds. These mods include “The Legend of Herobrine” and “Herobrine Remake,” both on Curse Forge.