Herobrine's World in Minecraft Discovered After 10 Years

Members of the Minecraft@Home fan group have been very busy lately. First they managed to locate the world that was immortalized on the original title screen. Then, after 2 months, they solved the puzzle of the pack.png file. The next task was more breakneck because, unlike the previous two projects, the only clue was a screenshot from almost 11 years ago. However, after four months of searching, the sought after world has been found. And not just any world. A world well known to all Minecraft fans, as it was popularized in a creepypasta (an online story created along the lines of urban legends) about a character called Herobrine.

Herobrine, also referred to by some as "He", is the protagonist of a creepypasta created by an anonymous gamer. The first mention of Steve's evil clone appeared around 2010 on one of Mojang forums or, according to other sources, on 4Chan. In it, the author described a strangely behaving character that looked exactly like Steve, only with white, not black eyes. The fabricated story of an encounter with a paranormal creature was accompanied by a screenshot as "proof". From then on, the legend took on a life of its own. Many recordings have been released confirming Herobrine's existence in the game. Discussions on both the existance of the character and his origins have flared up. According to the author of the original story, Herobrine was the spirit Markus "Notch" Persson's deceased brother. Others believed that "Evil Steve" was a bug in the code similar to MissingNo from Pokemon Red/Blue. All doubts were dispelled by Notch himself on January 8, 2011 on Twitter, when he confirmed that all information about Herobrine was fiction.

A fabricated screenshot that started Herobrine's legend. Source: Minecraft Wiki

Despite the fact that Herobrine turned out to be a mystification, he became a permanent part of the voxel world's lore. Various mods, more creepypastas, and even songs were created. However, what remained undiscovered was the world immortalized on the famous original screenshot. Many copies were created to imitate it, but the original location remained a mystery. Players have resigned themselves to the fact that it is almost impossible to find it. That's why the discovery from January 16 is so important to the Minecraft community - it's a nostalgic piece of the past and could be an opportunity for many to return to the good old days. Furthermore, this situation shows that with current technology and player determination, nothing is impossible to find.

To find yourself in the world where the legendary Herobrine existed, you'll need to launch Minecraft Java Edition and check "Historical Versions" in the launch options. From there, you'll need to select version a.1.0.16. Unfortunately, you can't type in the coordinates yourself and you won't be able to do without editing your saves. However, the members of Minecraft@Home have gone all out and provided a ready-made save file that instantly takes the player to the exact location where Herobrine was allegedly seen in the distance almost 11 years ago. The save file can be downloaded here. Of course, it's worth noting that even in this exact location we won't find any trace of the protagonist's evil twin brother.

The group is not resting on its laurels and is currently in the middle of another search. The first project aims to find worlds used as backgrounds in Super Smash Bros: Ultimate. The second project aims to find all the locations that were used in Minecraft's official trailer from 2011.