Is Herobrine real in Minecraft? Answered

Many longstanding games have their share of stories and legends around them, from odd glitches, secrets, easter eggs, and even urban legends. Some of these later prove to be hoaxes, while others turn out to be true, and some are added later on to pay homage to the story. Minecraft is no different in that regard, and one of the longest-standing legends in the Minecraft community is the legend of a mysterious shrouded figure called Herobrine. But is Herobrine even real?

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Is Herobrine really in Minecraft?

Although this is a somewhat layered question, the short answer is no; Herobrine is not in Minecraft and never was. It’s not a real player, character, monster, NPC, or anything. The whole Herobrine story was a hoax that started as a sort of creepypasta that later took on a life of its own within the community.

The story goes that a player was in a single-player world when he spotted a mysterious character just at the edge of his vision. This sighting would repeat several times, with the figure disappearing when he tried to investigate. Later on, other players would come out to report similar sightings, and the name Herobrine started circulating. In one version, the figure belonged to Notch’s lost brother. Ultimately, everything was revealed to be a hoax, and no reference to Herobrine exists in any of the game’s files.

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Over time, Mojang took the story and ran with it, adding a patch note to every update stating that they “- Removed Herobrine.” This patch note statement stirs the pot every time the game is updated, but outside of mods, there is no Herobrine in vanilla Minecraft. However, players were successful in locating the world seed in which the original Herobrine images were taken, so that’s at least something that you can use to relive the legend.