Minecraft
Minecraft By Gavin Stephen and Ashton Ainey
.png)
Minecraft is a sandbox game developed by Mojang Studios. Minecraft for PC was released on 18 November 2011. The world is procedurally generated, allowing players to explore vast lands, collect many resources and build whatever they desire. Minecraft features 2 main game modes, “Survival”, in which players must live through the harsh environment and “Creative”, where you are free to build with no care for health, hunger and fighting monsters.
Autoethnographic component
I am a Minecraft veteran and have played the game for over 10 years. Growing up alongside the game has drastically changed me as a person. Playing the game as a kid, I would build dirt houses, get lost when exploring, and fearfully hide inside my house at night. This is dramatically different to my game approach now, where I build massive farms that automate resources, create colossal bases, and slay monsters without any fear. Having Minecraft as a constant presence in my life has caused it to become less of a game and more of a personal timeline. As Minecraft does not have a fixed story it has allowed me the freedom to be creative and make my own. When I was younger, I got into building maps which lead me to discover redstone, and command blocks. These tools allow me to gain more control over my world and functioned very similar to basic programming. I later discovered Minecraft modding which taught me how to program in java. Without knowing it, Minecraft was slowly shaping my future and laying the groundwork for my decision to study computer science. Furthermore, Minecraft has helped me develop teamwork skills and social connections. Working on group projects in Survival Mode has improved my communication, delegation, and conflict resolution skills, all of which translate over to real life. Spending hours building and adventuring with my friends has also helped me deepen my connection with them. These aspects make Minecraft not just a world full of blocks, but a social space where friendships are built, and shared projects come to life (Figure 1). In my opinion Minecraft is more than just a game, it is a tool for expressing creativity, fostering educational growth, and strengthening social connections.
Horror Adjacent Elements
Sound effects play an important role in video games as they can contribute to important emotions that enhance the player experience. The horror genre in gaming, particularly leans into sound to elicit feelings of anxiety and arousal. The strength of sound effects in a horror context can be assessed by psychological models of sound perception. The article by Chen et al. examines scary sound effects in relation to the Anterior Asymmetry and Emotion Model (AAE) and Comfort Vector (CV) models (112–118). The AAE model establishes a connection between the prefrontal-lobe and motivation, with the right side linked to withdrawal behaviour and negative emotion and the left side linked to approach behaviour and positive emotion. The CV model measures mental moods by looking at affective valence and arousal dimensions. The creepers hissing sound works similar to the scary stimulus used in the article, thereby causing players to enter withdrawal motivation and negative affective states. This use of sound effects increases senses of fear and urgency, causing players to instinctively run away. Furthermore, players know that the hiss sound is not just startling, but also signals imminent danger. This increases stimulation in the right prefrontal-lobe causing heightened feelings of anxiety and arousal. Chen et al. also discusses how humans react significantly more to negative stimuli than to positive stimuli, possibly due to instinctual pressures to avoid harm (116). The creeper takes advantage of this by having a warning sound effect similar to a rattle snake, instantly shifting the player into survival mode.
Looking at another article by Roux-Girard (2011) we can see how sound effects in horror games can elicit emotions of fear and dread (192-212). The article discusses how in order to feel safe the gamer must be able to quickly find answers to their questions, and how horror games can use sound effects to block this process in order to arouse fear. One way that Minecraft does this is through its cave sounds; these have a chance to play whenever the player is below a certain depth in a cave. However, unlike the hiss of a creeper, these sounds are not accompanied by any immediate danger, they purely rely on creating a sense of unease. Just like in Silent Hill 2, these sound effects have 0 visible source and just help set the mood, where the player is wary of possible enemies (Toprac and Abdel-Meguid 8). These cave sounds are often distorted, abstract, and lack clear sources, thus putting the player on edge and causing them to question whether they are actually in danger. Game designers could expand upon this mechanic by making it so the cave noises could cause a real threat. One way they could implement this is by making it so every time a cave noise is played there is a chance that enemies spawn behind the player. This would cause players to question what is about to happen and feel a sense of imminent danger every time a cave noise is played, even when it does not carry any real threat.
Audio and visual cues are a core to the horror video game genre, with Minecraft being no exception. The game has countless audio cues to stir unease, such as cave sounds, creepers hissing, zombies grunting and more.There are also many scenarios where you lose access to visual cues, and nothing is a better example of this than the Warden, which blinds the player, senses movement and slowly tracks the player down. Caves also do a great job at creating a sense of claustrophobia through reducing your vision and playing creepy sounds. Peter Nelson notes that claustrophobia creates a sense of discomfort, which perfectly feeds into the sense of horror (1). These are perfect methods to instill a sense of fear and panic within the player, which Tanya Krzywinska notes as “a highly effective way to disrupt a player’s sense of self-assurance” (4).
The survival gamemode in minecraft, with difficulty set above peaceful, turns the game into a survival horror-esque experience. Minecraft, with its blocky graphics may look child-like and fun, but there are plenty of horror elements, such as creepy sounds, disturbing undertones and dangerous enemies. The genre “survival horror” uses imminent death as its method for instilling fear upon the player (qtd. in Lynch and Martins 299). Players may find themselves in the night without shelter, food, low on health or having to cave dive for resources, all of which pose a significant threat to the player. If you find yourself in the dark, there are plenty of mobs that spawn, such as zombies, skeletons and creepers, all of which are massive threats to the player (“Mob Spawning”). These mobs are also commonly seen in the Horror genre (European Studies). There is also the ability to create a world in hardcore mode, making any death instantly end your playthrough, which further feeds into the imminent threat of enemies. Combined with the randomness of world creation, an atmosphere of dread at night and constant external threats turn Minecraft into something closer to a survival horror than its initial appearance first suggests.
Fear is a natural reaction when encountered with dangers, both in the digital and physical world. Minecraft offers a playstyle for everyone, players can select peaceful mode which allows for a chill gaming experience with no threat of hostile mobs. The other mode is hardcore which heightens the player’s fear by dangling the threat of losing their world on death. Lynch and Martins note that females video game players experience more exaggerated fear responses than male players (301). These players that do not want to experience the horror-adjacent elements can play creative mode, which has zero threat of death and just allows the player to build freely. Keepinventory is a great option for those with a moderate affinity for horror elements, reducing the fear of losing items but still keeping all of the horror-esque audio and visual elements. Minecraft has many reasons it became successful, with the horror elements, infinite customizability, accessibility and a thriving community (Zentara). The game truly has an option for everyone, whether you love horror or are extremely intolerant to the genre.
AI Disclosure
No generative AI or large language models (LLMs) were used in the process of writing this wiki article.
References
Chen, Xi, et al. “Psychological response to sound stimuli evaluated by EEG.” Journal of Psychophysiology, vol. 29, no. 3, 1 July 2015, pp. 112–118, https://doi.org/10.1027/0269-8803/a000142.
Roux-Girard, Guillaume. “Listening to fear: A Study of Sound in Horror Computer Games.” Game Sound Technology and Player Interaction, pp. 192–212, https://doi.org/10.4018/978-1-61692-828-5.ch010.
Krzywinska, Tanya. “Gaming Horror’s Horror: Representation, Regulation, and Affect in Survival Horror Videogames.” Journal of Visual Culture, edited by Eugenie Brinkema and Caetlin Benson-Allott, vol. 14, no. 3, 2015, pp. 293–97, https://doi.org/10.1177/1470412915607924.
Lynch, T., & Martins, N. “Nothing to Fear? An Analysis of College Students’ Fear Experiences With Video Games.” Journal of Broadcasting & Electronic Media, 59(2), pp. 298–317. https://doi-org.ezproxy.library.uvic.ca/10.1080/08838151.2015.1029128
Nelson, Peter A. C. “Claustrophobia, Repetition and Redundancy: The Economy and Aesthetics of User-Generated Content in Sandbox Computer Games.” Game Studies, vol. 23, no. 2, July 2023, gamestudies.org/2302/articles/nelson.
Toprac, Paul, and Ahmed Abdel-Meguid. “Causing Fear, Suspense, and Anxiety Using Sound Design in Computer Games.” Game Sound Technology and Player Interaction: Concepts and Developments, edited by Mark Grimshaw, IGI Global, 2010, pp. 176-191. DOI:10.4018/978-1-61692-828-5.ch009.
“Mob spawning.” Minecraft Wiki, Fandom, https://minecraft.wiki/w/Mob_spawning
European Studios. What is the Horror Video Game Genre? European Studios, https://www.europeanstudios.com/encyclopedia/horror-video-game-genre/
Zentara. “Minecraft’s Impact: 10 Reasons It Became a Global Phenomenon.” Zentara Blog, 5 July 2025, Accessed 25 Oct. 2025.