Minecraft Turns 15: Celebrate with 15 Days of Free Character Creator Items

Minecraft is hitting a major milestone—its 15th anniversary! To celebrate, Mojang is hosting a special event with 15 days of giveaways from May 15th to May 29th. Each day will bring a new free Character Creator item, each representing a different year of Minecraft history.

While I'm not particularly excited about Character Creator items, I’ll definitely be logging in daily on my son's account to snag all the free goodies for him.

It’s wild to think that it’s been nearly 15 years since Markus "Notch" Persson shared the first playable build of Minecraft on the TIGSource forum on May 17th, 2009. It took just 49 minutes and 25 seconds for someone to share the first screenshot of their creation—a one-block-wide bridge (though the screenshot link is now broken).

Fast forward to today, and I’m paying for a monthly Realms Plus subscription so my son and I can play on a server together and access Marketplace mods in the Bedrock version of the game. I also pay for additional mods as needed. On top of that, I have a separate Marketplace subscription for my son to access skins on the Switch version of Minecraft. Unfortunately, the Switch version crashes constantly, fails to connect to Microsoft’s account system, and often denies access to owned items. The Marketplace is filled with paid mods that no longer work, which has caused my son a lot of frustration and tears. Sometimes, I hope Game Pass fails and Microsoft sinks into the ocean.

Despite these frustrations, Minecraft itself remains a pure, wondrous game, seemingly impervious to the attempts to tarnish it by its owners or even its creator. My son and I go on adventures, roleplay, and build amazing things together. Minecraft is a toybox, a dressing-up box, a pencil case of coloring pens, and sometimes just a sunny hill. I played it in 2009, I played it yesterday, and I have no reason to doubt I’ll be playing it in 2039.

To grab the free items each day, you’ll need to log in to the game, but Mojang will also announce each freebie via their Instagram Stories. Happy 15th anniversary, Minecraft! Here’s to many more years of creativity and adventure.