Minecraft Players Bring Herobrine To Hytale

One of Minecraft’s most enduring urban legends is Herobrine, an early internet horror story of a strange figure lurking just out of bounds within the randomly generated blocky worlds, stalking players from afar. It originated on 4chan’s /v/ board 16 years ago, with vague screenshots of “White Eyes” standing in the fog – the supposed phantom of Notch’s fictional deceased brother forever haunting the game.

Players took that first hazy screenshot and created an entire mythos around the white-eyed Steve, with Copeland’s viral stream of Herobrine watching him fall into a pool of lava catapulting the urban legend to new heights, leading to playground gossip about summoning rituals that would pull this phantom into your world. Mojang even leant into the legend, noting that Herobrine had been ‘removed’ with every update. Sure, in hindsight, it was obviously an internet in-joke, but as a kid, it only made the foggy low render distance that much creepier.

So, now that Hytale is finally in our hands, the spiritual successor to Minecraft birthed from one of its most popular servers, it’s only fitting that the community would bring its own version of Herobrine along for the ride.

Meet Hyrobrine, Simon Hypixel’s Brother

@FrMinecraft on X posted the above screenshot, recreating the iconic Herobrine image that birthed this Creepypasta-esque Minecraft myth all those years ago. Like before, we see a strange player character without a nametag watching from the hills with eerie white eyes, just standing there, ominously, and everything, from the hill to the trees and even the chicken, have been recreated 1:1.

The community have taken to calling this iteration Hyrobrine, joking that it’s lead developer Simon Hypixel’s brother, much as they did with Notch. It doesn’t have the same allure as the old myth, and could do with a bit more fog, but then again, it’s pretty hard to pull off a convincing game of internet telephone these days. Either way, it’s endearing to see a Minecraft legacy like this enjoy a new lease on life, and who knows? Maybe it’ll scare a new generation of kids growing up on the sandbox.