"Beautiful, grotesque, and scary": Minecraft reveals the development history of the warden

Minecraft's Warden is arguably the most terrifying boss mob to have ever existed in the game. For comparison, the formidable Ender Dragon has 200 health points, while the Warden has 500 health points, more than double. But how did Mojang Studios come up with such a scary and powerful creature? Thankfully, now we know. In a video titled The Scariest Cow Ever Created ┃The Story Of The Warden, the developers talk about the mob's origins, with the art director, Jasper Boerstra, calling it:

"Beautiful, grotesque, and scary."

Here’s the development history of the Warden and how the team came up with the concept, from the way it looks to the way it behaves and hunts players in Minecraft.

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How the Warden was created in Minecraft

In the YouTube video that’s over six minutes long, the minds behind Minecraft's scary Warden mob discuss how they came up with the idea of creating it. Surprisingly, the team started working on the concept way back in 2020 with the release of the influential Nether update.

Another interesting reveal about the development was how the team wanted to create a mob that could not yet be so dangerous that the players would have a difficult time avoiding it. While the other boss entities in Minecraft are dangerous, none of them have an element of fear in them. The developers wanted to add that to the experience.

During the development process, the team came up with different names and designs for these scary mobs. The first to come was the Stalker, a tall, asymmetrical creature that could hear clearly, but not see.

Concept for the Stalker (Image via Mojang Studios)

The scariest part about this Minecraft mob was that despite being tall, it could crawl and enter into tight spaces in case the players decided to hide in narrow shafts. Seeing a dangerous giant mob crawling towards you in the dark certainly would have been really scary.

But the idea was rejected and the team came up with another concept called the Hollowed. As the name suggests, this creature had large holes all over its body. The holes and the fleshy pink color of its body along with the vertical jaw make it less scary and more disgusting. Thank god the Warden does not look like this.

Concept for the Hollowed (Image via Mojang Studios)

Finally, the team combined the design of the Stalker and the Hollowed to create the mob that we call the Warden. While the video does not talk about its origins, a great Minecraft fan theory dives deep into the lore of this terrifying mob. If you are a fan of the game, then certainly check out both the videos.