Player

The Player is the character that users control in Minecraft, and is generally considered the unofficial main protagonist of the game. The default player is known as Steve, a name suggested by Notch as a joke, and is confirmed on the 'Profile' page near the section that allows you to change your skin. In the Credits, after beating Minecraft you are called a player. They are intended to be a generic, genderless representation of a human being, although the player's skin can be changed.

Appearance
The default player's skin (typically known as Steve) has dark brown hair, brownish skin, and indigo eyes, with a cyan-blue shirt (un-tucked on the left hand side and in the back), a pair of indigo jeans, and grayish-black shoes. Steve seems to have a slight stubble of a light brown beard. In the Xbox 360 edition the player's default skin can vary from Steve to seven other player skins. These skins have names and are listed below. Multiple skin packs are available for purchase on the Xbox Live Marketplace.

Personality and abilities
As expected from a generic player character, the player character's personality is entirely up to the player controlling them, they can have a kind personality and can work with other players to survive, or act ruthless and kill other players for their items, at the cost of likely being known as dangerous. The player seems to be very strong, as they are able to destroy many blocks with their bare hands, although the right tools break them faster. The player is also able to "talk", by pressing the Chat key ( by default) and typing the words in.

Pocket Edition
In the Pocket Edition, the player makes an "oof" sound when taking damage. In iOS versions of the Pocket Edition, Steve was named Stevie before 0.7.0. In Android versions of the game, they are named Steve, as normal. A rare glitch in this edition allows a player clone to appear in multiplayer which mimics the player.

Console Edition
In the Console Edition, there are 8 defaulted versions of Steve for the player to use (as well as many packs of new skins featuring non-Steve characters from various video games, such as  ' Splosion Man from his titular indie game and Master Chief from the Halo series). There are also skins featuring different mobs, such as skeletons, zombies, and the Ender Dragon. The 8 default skins are Steve, Boxer Steve, Cyclist Steve, Tennis Steve, Scottish Steve, Prisoner Steve, Tuxedo Steve, and Athlete Steve. Some variants of Steve look nothing like them, while others are them with different clothes.

Health Meter
The player has 10 full hearts or 20 health points. One full heart represents two health. When the player's hunger bar is at 18 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. If the hunger bar is at 17 points or lower, the player will not regenerate health unless in Peaceful difficulty (or under the effect of certain potions). If the hunger bar is down to 0, the player will start starving and losing health. On Hard difficulty, starvation will kill you. On normal difficulty, it will bring you down to half of a heart. On easy difficulty, it will bring you down to 5 hearts. On peaceful difficulty the health bar will recover regardless of hunger but will still take starvation damage, and the hunger bar will not lose any points, even when under the effect of food poisoning.

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 ~4.317 blocks per second. This means that they can walk a total of 5180 blocks (5.2 km) in one Minecraft day.

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 6 points or fewer left in the hunger meter. Sprinting is activated by double-tapping the forward key (default ) then holding it, or by pressing the sprint key ( by default).

Sneaking is a feature activated by holding the sneak key (default is ). Sneaking prevents players from falling one or more blocks, making it highly useful for building horizontally outwards over empty space. If you are past the edge of a block and you stop sneaking, you will not fall off of that block. Additionally, the player can still dismount blocks while sneaking by jumping over the block's edge.

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

The maximum height a player can jump without the effect "jump boost" is 1.249 blocks.

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 and the oxygen bar appears if the player is submerged in water. The HUD also contains the crosshair, and held object (or fist). The HUD can also be toggled by.

Experience
Experience points (XP) can be gained via experience orbs when killing mobs or mining certain minerals. The current level is indicated by a green number above the HUD, and the experience points can be used to enchant weapons, tools or armor with different useful attributes and skills (see enchanting table.) Anvils require experience to use.

The level increases by obtaining enough experience points. All levels and experience are lost upon death, but can be partially restored by picking up the experience orbs at the place of death.

Experience is also obtained through activities such as mining, smelting (experience is only given when already-smelted items are taken out of the furnace), fishing, and animal breeding.

Modes

 * In Survival mode, the player is able to place and destroy blocks, and use all tools available. The player has limited health (heart icons), hunger (drumstick icons), and oxygen (bubble icons) and it takes time to break blocks.
 * In Creative mode, the player has the ability to fly by double tapping the jump key(default ) 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, or, with cheats enabled, typing the command ), has no hunger and has unlimited oxygen, and breaking blocks is instantaneous.
 * In Hardcore mode, the player cannot respawn and the difficulty level is locked on hard mode. (If playing on a hardcore multiplayer server, the player is automatically banned from that server when they die.)
 * In Adventure mode, there are no changes from Survival mode aside from being unable to break blocks without the correct tool. This game mode can only be played by having cheats enabled and typing the command, , or , or by just opening a multiplayer (including LAN) world.
 * In Spectator mode, you can see inside an entity, fly through blocks, and open inventories, but you cannot break blocks or change inventories. Along with Adventure Mode, it can only be accessed by typing in, , or.

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.

The Console Edition has a separate default skin for each player. The ability to change that skin is available using the Change Skin option in the game. People who already have the removed skin packs can still use them and even re-download them (so they're still being hosted). If the removed skin packs are redownloaded on someone else's console they will become available to any profile on that console (provided the skin pack doesn't have a demo version to default back to).

In the Pocket Edition, the player uses the default skin, and it can be changed by changing the char.png in the game's files or using external apps on both iOS and Android.

Publicity

 * Steve is featured as a Micro Mob along with a creeper in the LEGO set 21102 LEGO Minecraft Micro World.
 * Steve is also an unlockable character in the Steam version of the game Super Meat Boy under the name "Mr. Minecraft". He has shorter jump height than other characters, and can mine squares from the level and place them as platforms.
 * Steve's head is an unlockable helmet in the Xbox Arcade game, Hybrid.
 * Steve's head is a wearable item in the game Borderlands 2.
 * Steve's head is able to be bought in the flash game "Fantasy Online", under the name "Minehead".
 * Steve's head is a wearable hat in the game DinoRun SE.

Trivia

 * The player's eye level (According to coordinates while pressing ) is 1.62 meters. Since their eyes are 28 pixels above their feet, leaving 4 pixels above their eyes (.23m), Steve is approximately 1.85 meters tall (6'1"). This seems to be confirmed by the game's code that shows Steve's hitbox being 1.8m tall and 0.6m wide.
 * The Player's total cubic volume is 1664 cubic pixels, and since each pixel is 244.140625 cubic centimeter, the player's total volume is 406,250 cubic centimeters. The average human body weighs 1.062 grams/cubic centimeter. This means that the player's weight is exactly 431.44 Kg (916.16 lbs).
 * The old player damage sound can be found in the game files as classic_hurt.ogg.
 * When hitboxes are toggled on (By pressing and ) the visible hitbox for the player actually starts at the player's neck and goes over the player's head as if it is the right size but standing on the player's shoulders. This is not the player's actual hitbox as skeletons can still shoot the player in the feet. The hitbox will be displayed correctly in 1.8.
 * Zombies wear the same clothing as Steve. This has led to the discussion whether zombies are actually the dead bodies of past Steves.
 * The player is right handed as they hold weapons, like swords, in their right hand. But they are left eye dominant, meaning they shoot left handed by holding the stock of a bow in their right hand. An easy way of seeing this is by charging a bow and pressing the Toggle Perspective key ( by default).
 * The player seems to have peripheral vision. Lights and lit objects are more visible near the edges of the display (only with graphics set to "fast").
 * Steve's terminal velocity is 162 km/h (100 mph), less than the average human's, about 190 km/h (120 mph).
 * The Player appears to be very strong, being able to carry an entire inventory of gold blocks, which would weigh nearly 45,000 metric tons. However, it's possible the player's inventory goes to some kind of hammerspace; after all, they don't look like he's carrying around a small mountain. Nor does the player have any visible backpack.
 * The Player appears to be very experienced in jumping, as they can jump over 1 meter high (one block).
 * Sometimes when you eat something, you can hear the player burp.
 * The sides of your field of view are stretched out (for example wait until sunset and look at the sun out of the corner of the screen. It will be twice as wide as tall). This may be referring to real life because we focus on certain objects in our field of vision, and everything else is blurry until we focus on it. It also may be due to the change from the original 4:3 aspect ratio to 16:9. Simply stretching the sides accomplishes this without actually changing anything.
 * The player is light enough to not crush a pig while riding it. The pigs are also pretty strong as they can carry a human with gold armor on with a full inventory of gold blocks. Same with horses. This is kind of contradictory, as stated above the player weighs 431.44 Kg (916.16 lbs).