List of Minecraft characters

This is a list of Minecraft characters, including playable characters and mobs. Several animals have been omitted.

Playable characters

Steve

Main article: Steve (Minecraft)

Steve is a player character that was introduced to the 2009 version of the game by created by Minecraft's developer Markus "Notch" Persson. Steve is the first of nine default player character skins available for players of contemporary versions of Minecraft. Steve lacks an official backstory as he is intended to be a customizable player avatar as opposed to being a predefined character.

Alex

Alex is the feminine counterpart of Steve, introduced in August 2014 for Java PC versions of Minecraft.

Others

In October 2022 several new default skins were added to the game: Noor, Sunny, Ari, Zuri, Makena, Kai, and Efe.

Mobs

Allay

The allay was added in the Wild Update of 2022, after being selected in the mob vote of the previous year's Minecraft Live. It is of a blue appearance and flies around following the player, picking up dropped items the player has chosen from the ground, and gives them to the player. The allay enjoys music and dances when note blocks are played; they also require the playing of jukeboxes to breed. Allays are found in jail cells outside pillager outposts or in woodland mansions.

Blaze

The blaze is a monster that spawns in nether fortresses. They fly around and consist of several flaming rods that spin around in circles. They shoot fire at the player.

Breeze

The breeze is a hostile mob that appears in trial chambers, added in June 2024. Sometimes regarded as a cold variant of the blaze, the breeze is coloured with blue and purple. They shoot out wind projectiles which cause mobs to be blown away and be dealt damage when hit. The projectiles can also cause redstone components such as dispensers to be activated. Trial chambers are equipped with dispensers full of arrows, which are often activated by the breeze.

Creaking

The creaking is a hostile mob that follows the player when out of the player's sight. The player cannot attack the creaking directly. Instead, they are killed by breaking a creaking heart block, which is found using a trail of particles that lead from the creaking to the heart block. The mob has the appearance of a grey tree, and only appear at night, in the greyscale biome known as the pale garden. The mob was announced in September 2024 and has been compared to the Weeping Angels in Doctor Who.

Creeper

Main article: Creeper (Minecraft)

Creepers are hostile mobs (mobile non-player characters) that spawn in dark places, but can still survive in the sunlight. Instead of attacking the player directly, they creep up on the player and explode, destroying blocks in the surrounding area and potentially hurting or killing the player if they are within the blast radius. Their green camouflage and generally silent behavior aid in stealth attacks, making them one of the most dangerous mobs in Minecraft. Creepers were first added to Minecraft in a pre-alpha update to the game that was released on September 1, 2009. Creepers are one of the most recognizable mobs of Minecraft.

Ender dragon

The ender dragon is a black flying dragon found in the end dimension. As a boss, the 'end' of the game is reached when it is killed.

Enderman

The enderman is a tall, dark mob with purple eyes that can teleport. It is mostly found in the end dimension, but also in the overworld and the nether. It is harmless if unprovoked, but will get angry and attack the player if it is looked at directly in the eyes. To get into the end dimension, endermen must be killed for their ender pearls.

Evoker

The evoker is a hostile mob that spawns in woodland mansions and appears in village raids. Instead of directly attacking the player, evokers summon vexes—a blue flying mob equipped with a sword—and fangs which come out of the ground. When killed, evokers drop a totem of undying, which the player can use to cheat death.

Ghast

The ghast is a white hostile mob that flies around the nether. It shoots fireballs at the player. It was added to the game in October 2010.

Glow squid

The glow squid is a glowing squid that was added in 2021, after being selected in the previous year's Minecraft Live mob vote. They spawn in the complete darkness of caves.

Guardian

Guardians are turquoise-coloured fish-like beings that spawn in ocean monuments.

Iron golem

The iron golem is a strong white mob made of iron that protects villages from monsters. They can be spawned in by the player by using three iron blocks and a pumpkin.

Phantom

The phantom spawns at night when the player has not slept for three days. They fly throughout the sky, and collide with the player to attack them. When the sun rises, they burn away.

Piglin

The piglin is a hostile mob that spawns in the nether dimension, and have the apperance of a humanoid pig. They have an 'obsessive' lovers for gold: if players wears gold armour, piglins will not attack them. But if gold blocks are broken near piglins, they will get angry and begin to attack the player. Piglins can also be given gold by the player as a way to barter for randomly selected items. Piglins come in four variants: regular piglins, zombified piglins, piglin brutes, and baby piglins.

Illagers

Illagers (including pillagers) are hostile versions of villagers, found in pillager outposts and patrols. They raid villages.

Shulker

Shulkers are purple block-shaped hostile mobs that inhabit end cities. When a player comes close, shulkers will open their shell and shoot out a white guided projectile which causes the player to float upwards after being hit. After being killed, shulkers can be used to make shulker boxes, a form of transportable storage.

Skeleton

The skeleton is a hostile mob that shoots arrows at the player with a bow and arrow. They spawn in the darkness and burn to death in sunlight. The stray is a variant of the skeleton that shoots slowness-inflicting arrows, and the bogged is a variant that inflicts poison.

Slime

Slimes are green block-shaped hostile mobs that jump around and attack the player by bouncing on them. They spawn in swamps and sometimes underground. When attacked, they multiply into smaller slimes.

Sniffer

Sniffers are large ancient animals with six legs that can sniff the ground for ancient buried seeds, and pull them up. They do not spawn naturally, and are spawned by hatching a sniffer egg that is found buried in the ground. Sniffers were voted in to the game in the 2022 Minecraft Live mob vote.

Snow golem

Snow golems are created by placing a pumpkin on two blocks of snow. They have the appearance of a snow man and attack hostile mobs by throwing snow balls at them.

Strider

The strider is a red-coloured mob found in the nether. They walk on lava and can be ridden on by the player.

Villager

Villagers are humanoid inhabitants of villages. There are 15 possible jobs that a villager can have, and each villager has an outfit corresponding to their job. Players can trade with villagers for their goods using emeralds. For example, the player can give emerald to a butcher in exchange for meat.

Warden

The warden is a blind monster found in the deep dark, a dark cave biome. As a monster that was designed to be scary, wardens follow and attack the player by following the sounds they make, encouraging the player to be quiet around them. Wardens were added to Minecraft in 2021.

Wither

The wither is a boss that is summoned by using three blocks of soul sand and three wither skeleton skulls. It attacks by shooting wither skulls at the player, which explode after colliding with the player or a block and will damage the terrain.

Zombie

Zombies spawn in darkness and attack the player by hitting them. They burn away in sunlight, and come in multiple variants: baby zombie, which is small and runs fast; zombie villager, a villager that has been victim to a zombie attack; husk, a desert zombie that inflicts hunger onto the player; and the drowned, which is an underwater zombie.

Unofficial characters

Herobrine

Main article: Herobrine

Herobrine is an urban legend and creepypasta, originating from an anonymous post on the imageboard website 4chan in 2010. He is depicted as a version of Steve, but with solid white eyes that lack pupils. In numerous iterations, Herobrine has possessed several different unnatural abilities, from constructing unusual structures to possessing animals such as sheep. Other claims about Herobrine include those that describe him to be the deceased brother of Notch, the creator of Minecraft. It is also rumored that he appears during single-player mode. After the original sightings were published on 4chan, livestreamers Copeland and Patimuss created their own takes on the story, staging sightings and the former creating a webpage oriented around the character.