Most Minecraft players will have heard about the “Cave Dweller” since this year began. This mod (short for Minecraft modification) was created by Youtuber Gargin with an aim to make the sandbox game much more terrifying. Unmodded, or normal Minecraft, for those who don’t know, is a sandbox game based on breaking and building blocks, as well as surviving and advancing in an open, computer-generated world. It’s not that scary, unless you’re in hardcore (only 1 life) mode and just fell off the sky base you were perfecting. Sure, at night zombies and skeletons and spiders abound and you might to take some of them out, but honestly, a zombie looks like this:
Not that scary, is it? It just looks like a green version of the player, and honestly, it doesn’t take much to escape or defeat them. However, while the gameplay isn’t really that scary, the environment does feel a bit creepy sometimes; e.g. –
It feels quite unsettling, doesn’t it? Well, Minecraft has had frequent updates on the base game adding blocks, mobs (NPCs or animals), and other items ever since the game was released. Updates 1.17 and 1.18, known as the Caves and Cliffs updates, which revamped the world generation by the making the world’s height limit much bigger, and added huge mountains and caves to Minecraft. The picture above is from this update, while the picture below is from the previous, smaller world generation.
As you can see, there’s a big difference between the two. Added to this was the fact that since the game was released there have been ambient cave sounds (19 of them, in fact) that are actually quite creepy. This is where Gargin came in. Gargin’s idea was to create the origin for the cave noises, hence the name “Cave Dweller”. The cave dweller is a lanky humanoid creature with long arms and an open jaw with a taste for the players. Once you find a cave, it will randomly spawn and stalk you, looking at you from behind blocks. If you catch it might start a chase sequence (from other options) where it attacks and you have either run away or kill it. Now, killing the cave dweller is too easy, even though it deals a lot of damage. However, most players will choose the former. Gargin made the cave dweller to be even scarier by making the creature have the ability to bend down and run on all fours and even crawl through a one-block opening, which no other mob has ever had the ability to. Players tempted to hide in a tunnel and partially block it off will find themselves cornered by the cave dweller.
The cave dweller boomed in success, and a lot of players played the mod. However, the idea of a monster that stalks you became far more popular than the actual mod by Gargin. This led to a lot of people making so called “dwellers”. While they are popular, most of them are just the same humanoid with different features like antlers, a red nose (yes, there’s a Rudolph dweller), pale skin, or just Xtra Shiny teeth.
Okay, so they do look kinda scary, but after the first few playthroughs it just gets boring, and only a few dwellers really stand out. For one, the “Kim Mimic” for lack of a better name, created by Forge Labs and unsorted guy which is an absolutely beautiful piece of horror-inducing nightmare fuel. It doesn’t look that scary, but the fear factor kicks in because it imitates the players, in this case unsorted guy (real name Kim), by calling out for help and telling other players to come to its location.
The cave dwellers are coming down from their peak fame, even though Youtubers still continue to make videos on them. However, modders haven’t been deterred to try and make Minecraft scary. The Manbear by idk someguy has a more complex and intelligent AI and offers a more complete experience compared to the numerous other dwellers, even if it looks like Freddy Fazbear from FNAF got an upgrade.
The Manbear offers hope for Minecraft horror, and as AI continues to advance, i think we’ll have advancements in not just Minecraft but in the whole video game industry.
Anay Ganesh 