Minecraft Characters: Steve, Alex, Herobrine and More

The main Minecraft game has almost no named characters. The player is the closest thing to one: Steve and Alex are the best-known default skins, and since 2022 there have been nine default skins in total. Everything else you meet in a world, from creepers to villagers, is a mob rather than a character with a story.

Steve, Alex and the other default skins

Steve has been the default look since the game’s earliest versions in 2009. Alex, with slimmer arms and orange hair, joined in 2014. Neither has a backstory in the game. They’re just the starting appearance, and most players switch to their own skin quickly. Our guide to changing your skin shows how.

In late 2022 Mojang added seven more default skins: Ari, Efe, Kai, Makena, Noor, Sunny and Zuri. When you start fresh, the game gives you one of the nine, each available with classic or slim arms.

The mobs people mean by “characters”

When kids talk about Minecraft characters, they usually mean the mobs. The best-known ones:

• The creeper, the green exploding face that became the game’s logo. It started as a mistake: Notch mixed up the height and length while modeling a pig.
• The enderman, tall and black, which teleports and gets angry if you look at it.
• The villager, the big-nosed trader.
• The ender dragon, the final boss.
• Zombies, skeletons, pigs, wolves, axolotls and many more.

Our mobs section has a page for each, with health, drops and behavior.

Herobrine

Herobrine is a ghostly Steve with white eyes, and he isn’t in the game. He came from a creepypasta story posted online in 2010 and became a long-running community legend. Mojang leaned into the joke by writing “Removed Herobrine” in update notes. No version of Minecraft, Java or Bedrock, has ever had him.

Spin-offs do have characters

Other Minecraft games and media gave the world named characters:

• Minecraft: Story Mode (Telltale, 2015-2017): Jesse, Petra, Lukas, Olivia, Axel and Ivor.
• Minecraft Dungeons (2020): the Arch-Illager, the main villain.
• Minecraft Legends (2023): the three Hosts (Foresight, Action and Knowledge) and the invading piglins.
• A Minecraft Movie (2025): Jack Black as Steve, Jason Momoa as Garrett, plus Henry, Natalie and Dawn.

The spin-offs explained page covers what each of those games is and whether you can still play it. None of their characters appear in the main sandbox game.