Steve and Alex

For information on Zombie and Enderman, see Mobs
For fighter info, see Steve (SSBU)

Steve and Alex
Universe	Minecraft
Debut	Minecraft (2009 for Steve, 2014 for Alex)
Appears in
Console of origin	PC
Species	Human
Gender	Male (Steve) Female (Alex)
Hair color	Brown (Steve) Orange (Alex)
Eye color	Blue (Steve) Green (Alex)
Homeworld	Overworld
Created by	Markus "Notch" Persson
Designed by	Mojang Studios

Steve and Alex are the default names commonly associated with the default skins of the playable character from Mojang Studios and Xbox Game Studios's Minecraft.

They joined Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, alongside a Zombie and an Enderman, as the second fighters in Fighters Pass Volume 2 and are the eighth downloadable characters overall.

Character description

Steve debuted as the default skin for the player's avatar in Minecraft. Initially nameless, the character soon gained a moniker after franchise creator Markus "Notch" Persson was asked by a fan on Twitter if he had one, to which he jokingly replied "Steve?". The name quickly began to be adopted by the fanbase and eventually by Mojang themselves, though other names were also thrown around prior such as Mr. Minecraft (as in his cameo in Super Meat Boy) as well as literally Steve? before the studio made it official without the question mark.

According to Notch, Steve was designed to be gender-neutral as to avoid the possibility of having the player feel pressured into deciding a sex for the character. Despite this, an alternate feminine model with the given name of Alex was introduced in 2014, who noticeably has thinner arms than Steve. Since her inclusion, the two have basically been given definitive genders as their roles were expanded to become one of the franchise's de facto mascots, appearing on merchandise and game update trailers.

Within the game, their appearances can be customized with the help of skin packs (or a template in the Java version). Some of the packs have featured crossover content from multiple franchises including Super Mario, Banjo-Kazooie, Pac-Man, Final Fantasy, and Fallout.

In terms of abilities, Steve and Alex can only do basic functions such as walking, running, jumping, punching, and crafting. As for their personality, much like their simplistic design, it is intended to be a blank slate. Within the very thin lore of the franchise, Steve and Alex are implied to simply be vessels of the actual player's manifestation, leaving somewhat of a resemblance of a "personality" up to the will of the player.

In Super Smash Bros. Ultimate

Steve was announced to be joining Ultimate as the second fighter in Fighters Pass Volume 2 during a live trailer reveal held on October 1, 2020. Much like the Heroes and the Koopalings, Alex and mob enemies Zombie and Enderman can be playable as Steve's palette swaps.

True to the core gameplay of Minecraft, Steve and Alex can roam the stage to mine for resources, craft weapons with them, and place Blocks around the stage. They are a fighter with high management priority, as players must constantly keep their limited number of resources in check, as they can be quickly depleted with certain moves such as Minecart and TNT or when weapons break.

They were released on October 13, 2020, alongside the stage Minecraft World, 7 music tracks, and a Minecraft-themed Spirit Board as a part of Challenger Pack 7.

Trivia

• Steve and Alex are the first fighters:
  • To come from an indie game, as Mojang Studios was an independent company when Minecraft launched prior to being purchased by Xbox Game Studios.
  • To come from a non-English speaking Western country, being Sweden
  • From the West to have no involvement from Nintendo in their creation
• Steve and Alex are the second fighters:
  • To originate from a Western-made franchise, to be owned by a Western company, and be owned by one of Nintendo's rivals in the console and publishing markets, the other being fellow Microsoft representatives Banjo & Kazooie.
  • To debut on a PC, following Solid Snake
• Steve and Alex are the fifth fighters to originate outside of Japan, following Diddy Kong, Dark Samus, King K. Rool, and Banjo & Kazooie.
• According to former Minecraft production director Daniel Kaplan, negotiations for Steve to be in Smash took at least five whole years, meaning planning started from before 2015.
• Though Steve's texture is directly imported from Minecraft, it notably keeps his beard intact. This is different from current iterations of Minecraft as Mojang have since removed the beard due to players commonly mistaking it for a smile. Though, one could argue that the Smash development team went with his "classic" design for its recognizability, as Mojang and Microsoft still use it for promotional material and merchandising.
• When Steve was announced, the social networking platform Twitter crashed. It is rumored that it crashed due to everyone who was excited for his inclusion in the game making discussing about it.