Player

The player is the character users control. The default player is known as "Steve?" (Notch puts the question mark because the name "Steve" is still not confirmed to be his real name, though the default skin is popularly known as Steve). The player's skin can be changed. The player appears to be right-handed, holding all items and blocks in his right hand.

Appearance
The default player's skin has brown hair, tan skin, and blue eyes with the player wearing a cyan-blue shirt, a pair of blue jeans, and grayish-black shoes. In the Xbox 360 version the player's skin can vary from Steve to 7 other player skins (As stated below). None of these skins have names yet but one does have a nickname, the third player is sometimes referred to as James Bond or a hit-man.

Pocket Edition
In the Pocket Edition, the player still makes the "Ooh" sound. Instead of being "Steve", the player is named "Stevie".

Xbox 360 Edition
In the Xbox 360 Edition, there are 8 defaulted versions of Steve for the player to use (as well as an upcoming 40-pack of new skins featuring non-Steve characters from various video games, such as 'Splosion Man from his titular indie game). The 8 defaults are Steve, Boxer Steve, Cyclist Steve, Tennis Steve, Scottish Steve, Prisoner Steve, Butler Steve, and Black Steve.

Health
The player has 10 full hearts. When the player's hunger bar is at 9 points or higher, their health will slowly regenerate by half a heart every five seconds. The hunger bar depletes faster when the player does things like sprinting, jumping, attacking mobs, and mining, and it can be refilled by eating food. When the hunger bar is down to 0, the player will start starving and losing health. Prior to Beta 1.8 Adventure Update, there was no hunger.

Movement

 * Note: the numerical values used in this section are approximations based on experimentation. Slight variation from true values is possible, based on human error, and so each value also lists an error range.

The player walks at a rate of 4.31(±0.01) blocks per second. This means that he can walk a total of 5160 blocks in one Minecraft day.

As of Beta 1.8, the player is able to sprint, draining the food bar considerably (10×) faster than usual while doing so. The player is capable of sprinting approximately 5.55(±0.02) blocks per second, as opposed to the regular pace of 4.31. The player can jump four blocks horizontally when sprinting. The player cannot sprint if there are only 3 bars or fewer left in the hunger meter. Sprinting is activated by double-tapping then holding it.

In creative mode, the player flies at 10.88(±0.06) blocks per second.

Gameplay HUD
The onscreen heads-up display (HUD) consists of the player's health bar, hunger bar, experience bar, and hotbar. The armor rating bar appears above the health bar if the player is wearing armor. The HUD also contains the reticule, held object (or fist), version and, if applicable, the unlicensed copy note. You can also remove the HUD by pressing on your keyboard (and pressing  again to show it again).

Experience
Beta 1.8 introduced the ability to gain experience points via experience orbs when killing mobs. However, experience points and leveling was not yet utilized in the game until the fourth pre-release of version beta 1.9. Your level is indicated by a green number above your HUD, and your experience points can be used to enchant weapons, tools or armor with different useful attributes and skills (see enchanting table.)

Your level increases by obtaining enough experience points, and you lose all levels and experience upon death.

Modes

 * In Survival Mode, The player is able to place and destroy blocks, and use all tools available. The player has limited health, hunger, and oxygen (10 hearts/drumsticks/bubbles) and it takes time to break blocks.
 * In Creative Mode, the player has the ability to fly by double tapping the and to place infinite number of blocks, but with limited use of crafting and tools. The player cannot take damage (except from falling into the Void), has no hunger and has unlimited oxygen, and breaking blocks is instantaneous. Also, the arm length is increased from 4 to 8.
 * In Hardcore Mode, the player cannot respawn and the difficulty level is locked on hard mode. (In multiplayer you're automatically banned)
 * In 12w22a, a new Adventure Mode has been added, so far there are no changes aside from being unable to break or place blocks. The gamemode can only be played by having cheats enabled for your world and typing in the command "/gamemode 2"

Customization
Users can change their character's skins; this can be done on the Preferences page of Minecraft.net by uploading a .PNG image file, which will then replace the default skin. For the website, see Minecraft Skins.

The Xbox 360 Edition has a separate default skin for each player. As of yet, the ability to change that skin is currently not available, but the developers consider it a priority.

In the Pocket Edition, the player cannot change his skin and will still use the default skin.

History


Before Alpha 1.0.14, the walking animation for the player was different; the player swung their arms wildly to their sides while walking as can be seen in the file archives, and in a video of Minecraft Classic from 2009 as well as in the video Zombie Town by Notch, which features the removed human mob. This animation is still used in Classic.

After the Beta update, the default texture for the player was replaced with a beardless version. The bearded version is still obtainable by downloading the reference skin at. The bearded version can often be mistaken for a smiley face.

Before the Adventure Update, the armor bar had appeared in the position that the hunger bar is currently at now.

The player can jump one block high, and two blocks long (in Classic, three blocks long). Since Beta 1.8 Pre-release 1, the player can jump 4 blocks horizontally if sprinting.

The player did not have an experience or hunger bar before 1.8 pre1.

Before Minecraft RC2, when the player was damaged, he would make a deep "Ooh!" sound which represented the player's response when hurt. However, this sound suggested that the player was male, which was not consistent/representative of female players, so Mojang changed the sound to make it more gender-neutral, and, as of RC2, any physical damage will play a flesh impact sound, and damage from falling would play sounds like bones breaking.

Trivia

 * The player's eye level (According to coordinates while pressing ) is 1.62 meters, if every block is assumed to be one meter tall. Using human head proportions and average sizes, this means that the player height is approximately 1.73m (5'8"). This seems to be confirmed in an old video by Notch, as it is stated he is 1.7 meters tall.
 * The player can carry about 45 million kg. This is with a stack of Gold Blocks in every slot of his inventory, wearing gold armor and wielding a gold sword, assuming that one block is one cubic meter, and assuming that gold is the densest substance in the game (19,300 kg/m³ in real life). Fictional substances like End stone could be even denser.
 * Zombies wear the same clothing as Steve. This has led to the discussion whether zombies are actually the dead bodies of past Steves.
 * Steve is right handed as he holds weapons, like swords, in his right hand. But he is left eye dominant, meaning he shoots left handed by holding the stock of his bow in his right hand. An easy way of seeing this is by charging your bow and pressing.
 * Steve is featured as a Micro Mob along with a Creeper in the LEGO set 21102 LEGO Minecraft Micro World.