There aren’t many status symbols in Minecraft due to how each server is run by individuals, rather than Mojang directly, but the one thing that will make you stand out from the crowd is an official Minecraft cape. While there are Minecraft mods that can give you any cape you like, and some can be bought on the Marketplace, to have one officially tied to your account that you can use in the vanilla game is a rarity, especially as fewer and fewer are given out as the years go by.
We’re going to go through every cape released in the game’s history and explain who they were given out to. Some are VERY exclusive, others got widely distributed, and there are just one or two you can still get your hands on right now.
Mojang capes
If you want one of these capes, then you need to get yourself a programming degree and get hired by the elite team at Mojang, because Mojang employees are the only people who get this cape. It’s changed a few times over the years as the Mojang logo has changed. Right now it resembles the “gizmos” in the logo.
Minecon capes
From 2011 to 2016 a different cape was given out to everyone who attended Minecon that year. Sometimes it was done by registering your account online, other times it was done by scanning your ticket at the door. When the event switched to be a digital-only affair these capes were no longer given out, except for in 2019, when one was released for free exclusively on the Minecraft Marketplace for Bedrock Edition.
You can technically still buy the Minecon 2019 cape today but you’ll need to cough up 10 million Minecoins for the privilege, which would cost you $62,500, making it practically impossible to get it.
Millionth customer cape
As of 2022, Minecraft has sold over 238 million copies, but back in 2011 Mojang was desperate to hit that sweet 1 million mark. They reached it on January 13, 2011, and the lucky millionth user, akronman1, was given their own special cape. It’s unknown if akronman1 still plays the game today as they no longer have a presence online, but they’ve got a very valuable account sitting around if they ever wanted to pass it on.
Personalised capes
Over the years, the team behind Minecraft have given out unique capes to some users who stand out in the community or help out the development team in some way. The game’s original creator, Notch, was notorious for giving out capes to people just because he liked their work. Some of these capes were eventually taken away because of too many people asking for personalised capes, but some are still around.
Here’s a list of all of them and why they were given out:
- Bacon Cape – Given to Miclee as he came up with the idea of Minecraft’s Pigmen.
- DannyBstyle – A video game composer whose work Notch enjoyed.
- JulianClark – Given in return for “bringing Notch Ray Cokes”, one of the title-screen jokes from Minecraft beta.
- Cheapsh0t – Given for helping the Mojang team while they were in Tokyo.
- MrMessiah – Given for creating the BetterLight mod which Mojang used to improve Minecraft’s lighting engine.
- Prismarine Cape – Given to Drullkus for recreating the Prismarine texture in his Chisel mod, rather than using the original Minecraft one. This cape has already been made by Jeb, but it didn’t have an owner until he decided to give it to Drullkus.
- Birthday Cape – Given to Gr8Bizzo, a Mojang employee who worked on the Minecraft website.
- Valentines Cape – Given to LolFoxy2 by an employee after resolving their problems with account migration. However, it was quickly removed when the employee realised its rarity, and LolFoxy2 was given the Migration cape instead.
- Turtle Cape – Given to billyK for his suggestion to add turtles to the game.
Translator cape
With such a huge game, Minecraft needed to be made as accessible as possible to everyone across the world, so a huge effort has been made to localise the game in as many languages as possible. These tasks have been performed by many different people over the years, and most of them are given the Translator cape as thanks for their efforts.
Scrolls champion cape
Remember Scrolls? Nope, didn’t think so. Either way, it was the game that proved Mojang will never be allowed to move on from Minecraft as it was released to near-universal apathy in 2014. Regardless, Mojang made an effort to cross-promote it with Minecraft, including giving this cape to anyone who placed first in the weekly charts five times. It was also given out as a prize for a Scrolls tournament at Minecon 2015.
Cobalt cape
If you thought Scrolls was a forgotten Mojang game, how does Cobalt tickle your fancy? Once again, this was a cape given out in 2016 to winners of Cobalt tournaments and a level-making competition. Interestingly, it’s one of the only capes to have a significantly altered design for its Elytra form. Not interesting enough to play Cobalt though.
Mojira moderator cape
It’s not entirely clear where the name for this one comes from, but it was given out to the moderators for the Minecraft Bug Tracker. The game has no shortage of bugs, Bedrock Edition especially, meaning those who kept the bug tracking forums in order have quite the job on their hands, so it was nice for them to get something special.
Realms map maker cape
As an incentive to get more people involved in making official maps for Minecraft Realms, a reward scheme was introduced for anyone who published content using it. Publishing a world template got you two points, inspiration maps earned three, and minigames, experiences, or adventures were worth four. If you earned eight points through this scheme you’d be given this cape.
Migrator cape
This cape is still available for PC players if you haven’t already got your hands on it. If you bought Minecraft before December 1, 2020, you can get this cape by migrating your Mojang/legacy account to a Microsoft account. If you’ve already done this, then make sure to check your in-game options, as you should already have it.
Vanilla cape
Another cape that’s available right now, the Vanilla cape was the source of a bit of mystery when Mojang revealed it, but quickly removed the post with no comment. However, it’s now been officially released to any player who bought both Java Edition and Bedrock Edition on PC before June 6, 2022 – the date the launchers merged. Note, if you got the free version of either game from owning the other, then you won’t have this cape, you must have bought both editions separately.
Written by Ryan Woodrow on behalf of GLHF.
