Herobrine, the Minecraft urban legend: The story and theories

Who is Herobrine? Herobrine is a fictional monster that supposedly roams the different servers of Minecraft. It’s the subject of many Minecraft Creepy-pasta (scary stories). It looks like a regular Steve skin but its eyes are completely white. Since its creation, it’s become the Minecraft community’s Urban Legend. People swear to have met and fought it, and there are dozens of stories revolving around it and its possible origins.

Before we dive into this mystery, let us give out this disclaimer: Herobrine does not exist. It is not in Minecraft. It never has been. It is a hoax, a simple story that sparked discussions and fake accountings of encounters. It’s most likely inspired by the Slenderman internet myth (Slender game).

The Story
It first appeared on an image in 4Chan detailing a fake encounter, but it didn’t gain instant popularity. It would take the Brocraft player Copeland to really set Herobrine on the world.

Enamoured with the story, Copeland first photoshopped the creature into several screenshots to draw attention; and once he did, he staged a hoax where he included a retextured NPC that looked like Herobrine. The video got instant reaction and people went crazy. The craze would last until another player, Platimuss ‘outed’ Herobrine as being a fake, something Copeland didn’t appreciate.

The Theories
But even knowing it’s fake hasn’t stopped players from coming up with theories about this creature. Some say it’s a ghost trapped in the code, with some taking it even further and claiming it’s the ghost of Notch’s—the creator of Minecraft—dead brother. Of course, there’s a little problem with this theory, and that is Notch doesn’t have a brother.

Others claim it’s a virus given form, because of its reported abilities to alter game worlds to remove leaves from trees, create pyramids and small 2x2 tunnels.

Then there are the stranger theories about Herobrine being a higher being, or a demon, or some other entity that has invaded Minecraft.

Will Herobrine be included in Minecraft?
Because of its popularity, Mojan has often received slews of requests to include the strange creature in the game. While this is a clear attempt at gaining some validity by those who started the Urban Legend, and hundreds of players have made the request, Notch and the rest of the development team have been adamant stating they have no plans on adding the creature to the game, even though they really enjoy all the rumours.

With the size of Minecraft’s community, the creation of an Urban Legend was inevitable. If it happened a decade ago with Final Fantasy VII in a time where the internet wasn’t everywhere in the world, it’s an inevitability with online communities.

By the way is there one Herobrine mod available to use in Minecraft! You can download it here: Herobrine Mod!

If you have your own Minecraft Herobrine theories or stories, hit us up in the comments. Even more, do you know of more gaming community urban legends? Please let us know.

And if you don’t want to believe us that Herobrine isn’t real, and you want to have a go at trying to find and kill this strange creature, then click here for a Minecraft free download or you can also download a Herobrine skin, discover our collection of the most awesome Minecraft Skins, here or download Minecraft Skins Pack directly from Rocky Bytes. 

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