The Tale of Herobrine, 'Minecraft's' Creepy Entity

The popular sandbox title Minecraft has been around for more than a decade now, releasing consistent updates with new content to keep players interested. Features like the deep dark biome and frogs were added as part of the 1.19 Wild Update recently released for the game.

Despite Minecraft being around for so long, there are still many urban legends associated with the game that newer players are unclear of the answers to — like Herobrine.

For those who don't know, the tale of Herobrine tells of a character in a single-player Minecraft world with the game's default skin and and "empty" eyes. This character has no username overtop and does not appear to be harmful, but only lurks on the edges of the person's world. Signs of Herobrine being present in your world include two-by-two tunnels, perfect pyramids, and trees with all of their leaves removed.

While Herobrine "sightings" have been shared for years, is he actually real?

The story of Herobrine originated on a creepypasta thread, telling of a character in their single-player world that seemed to be watching the character while they played.

"I continued on with my game, not sure what to think... I would constantly think I saw the other 'player' deep in the fog, but I never got a better look at him. I tried increasing my render distance to far whenever I thought I saw him, but to no avail," the original post reads.

The player then claimed that when they tried posting on online forums about this mysterious character, their post would quickly be deleted, leaving them even more confused as to the character's origin and purpose in the game. As the tale continues, the player says they were later put in contact with other players who had the same encounters, chatting with them through email as they tried to uncover this mystery. It all seemed to connect back to someone with the username "Herobrine."

"Some of the people who had encountered the mystery man had looked into the name Herobrine and found that name to be frequently used by a Swedish gamer," the post continues. "After some further information gathering, it was revealed to be the brother of Notch, the game's developer. I personally emailed Notch, and asked him if he had a brother. It took him a while, but he emailed me back a very short message.

"'I did, but he is no longer with us.'"

Following the original creepypasta, there have been plenty of other "encounters" online of this mysterious player, with screenshots shared in online forums and players telling even taller tales.

But at the end of the day, the answer is that Herobrine is nothing more than a myth.

Over the years, players have scoured the game's code for evidence of Herobrine to no avail. Many of the players who continued to perpetuate this myth have admitted that they were faking it to get in on the lore, but Herobrine is not actually a feature that exists in any version of the game.

That being said, there are mods that have been created to place the character in the game, but if you're playing traditional Minecraft, you will not stumble upon Herobrine.