My girls are obsessed with Minecraft. As in, Marble Jar-level obsessed. And yet, for some reason, Mojang hasn’t quite embraced the girls who have embraced Minecraft with any female characters. Until now. Tomorrow, they’re rolling out Alex, the first female Minecraft character who actually looks vaguely female considering the 8-bit animation. Or at least she doesn’t look like like a Steve skin, only with long hair.
Alex doesn’t “have eyelashes” which my daughter noticed at a very early age was what defined female animals on cartoons. But she does have reddish hair, which is kind of like her favorite Harry Potter character, Ginny Weasley, so she’s thrilled. But besides her slightly more slender arms, she looks pretty much the same as every other character, so fear not, moms who hate the now curvy figures of new and not-entirely improved cartoon characters of your own youth.
Alex is going to be a free option on all gaming consoles (PS and Xbox) as of tomorrow, and come summer, she’ll be on the updated Minecraft PE — this parent’s Minecraft portal of choice.
I’m really happy that it makes my girls so happy. My second-grader has a polka-dot house totally made of mushrooms with a sheep farm out back, while my fourth-grader created her own Amazing Race obstacle course; I sense Alex will fit perfectly into both. That is, when she’s not slaughtering hostile mobs with a diamond sword.
Check out a little info about Alex, the first female Minecraft character, on the Mojang blog
That is great news!! My daughter has been wishing for a female Minecraft character! She is going to be super excited.
Ahh, another console feature that us PC gamers have had from the very beginning.
This is true!
Inaccurate. There have been female characters to choose from for years now. The default character was male but all you have to do is go into the settings and change the “Skin”. They have many female, male, and random skins to choose from.
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Thanks for your comment Mike. Alex is indeed the first female default character. While of course there are hundreds of female skins, that option isn’t available to PE players or to console players like my kids. This character also sends the message that you don’t have to “play a boy who’s skinned like a girl” which is an important distinction for girls. We’re pleased that Alex gives girls across platforms a default female character option and hopefully that accurate description of the news came across in our post. -Liz