Do you remember… Herobrine?

Every Minecraft player of a certain age remembers the rumour. Somewhere in your world, maybe, was Herobrine: a figure who looked like the standard player character, except for his blank white eyes. He watched you from the fog. He built strange tunnels. He took the leaves off trees.

The story started in 2010, in a forum post from someone claiming to have spotted him in a single-player world. It spread through forums, playground conversations and countless YouTube videos where very brave teenagers swore they’d seen him, just for a second, before the screen went black.

None of it was real. Herobrine was never in the game. But Mojang played along, and for years its update notes slipped in a straight-faced line: “Removed Herobrine”. By official count, he’s been removed a great many times.

That’s the brilliant thing about Herobrine. He was a campfire story for a game made of blocks, and all of us were in on it, sort of.