Assassin of Steve

*"Steve has been assassinated! Your mission is to defeat the Assassin, but he flees to hazardous locations home to evil monsters..."*

**Assassin of Steve** is the first map in the Assassin of Steve trilogy.

## Gameplay

**Assassin of Steve** is a PVE Adventure map. It consists of a Starter Mission, which is a short mission intended to get the player into the feel of the map, followed by ten missions which make up the entirety of the map's story.

Each mission has similar gameplay involving fighting and defeating custom mobs. Most missions end with a boss fight that is against either a much more powerful custom mob or against a structure that must be destroyed in some way.

Some missions feature codes, which are quick puzzles that have to be completed to progress further through the mission. Throughout most of the missions, there may also be small side paths, which can either lead to a Lore Book or a Loot Chest.
Custom Music may also be played if the player has the map's texture pack, which is linked in the startup rooms of the map.

Other gameplay elements that feature in this map include parkour and trading custom items with villagers to gain keys or other blocks that have to be placed to progress. There are also XP Shops found in-between each mission starting from the end of Mission 2, where the player can exchange experience levels for Equipment and Potions.

### Missions

Starter Mission

Mission 1

Mission 2

Mission 3

Mission 4

Mission 5

Mission 6

Mission 7

Mission 8

Mission 9

Mission 10

## Plot

**WARNING: THIS SECTION CONTAINS MAJOR SPOILERS THAT MAY SPOIL YOUR ENJOYMENT OF THE MAP. READ AT YOUR OWN RISK!**

The map opens with the player coming across Mitch's farm, which is under attack by Undead Farmers. The player's first task is to defeat all fifteen Undead Farmers, collect their wheat, then put it all in the hopper located inside Mitch's house. Once they do this, Mitch will inform them that he saw one of them go in the barn, which is the first boss, Slaw. Upon defeating him, the player is rewarded with a Reward Chest and can leave through the iron doors at the back of the farm.

The player will enter Emere Graveyard, where upon meeting the Mayor of Emere at the top of the stairs where a new headstone has recently been erected, they will be informed that Steve has been assassinated. Through a Mission Book they will learn that Steve was assassinated when mining at Mt Jewel, which is the players' next destination. Upon entering Mt Jewel and finding the emerald cavern at the top, they will be teleported into a small room where they will hear the Assassin speak for the first time (without seeing him). He will send out some waves of monsters at the player, finishing up with the boss, the Emerald Miner. Upon defeating it the Assassin will leave, and the player can leave Mt Jewel.

Another Mission Book will inform the player that Emere is under attack by the Skeleton Army, telling them to quickly return. At Emere a Pigman General in control of a cannon will start firing into Emere, laying untold destruction upon the village. The player has to defeat all four Pigman Generals, picking up their Cannon Codes, and then place them into the hopper inside the Cannon to disable it.

After disabling the cannon, the Mayor tells the player to head into the basement of the church, where they will meet Stuart, who tells the player he is Steve's brother. The next Mission Book will tell the player to travel through the Emere Mountain Ranges to the Skeleton Army Barracks. On the way they will come across some large stone walls known as Garrisons, and shoot the Garrison Archers stationed on the wall in order to open up the way through each one. At the barracks the player has to destroy the three power cores, which are each disabled by solving a code. Upon disabling all three cores, the player will be teleported to face Captain Yarma, the leader of the Skeleton Army. Captain Yarma will drop Iron Robots out of some iron pipes on the ceiling while also shooting at the player with his cannon. The Iron Robots drop Iron Blocks, which can be placed in the groove. Upon filling up the groove Captain Yarma will drop down to fight the player. After some fighting Stuart will say that Captain Yarma is too strong for the player, and takes control of the cannon to blast out a hole in the floor, revealing a pit. He will say to push Captain Yarma into the hole, where he'll be trapped. After doing this the Assassin's voice will be heard again, telling the player to not follow him, on the basis that "you will only fail," but also reveals he is heading to the Frozen Wasteland.

The Frozen Wasteland is conveniently right next to the barracks, so the player can quickly journey into them. They have to cross a treacherous icy canyon to reach the igloos on the other side, where inside the largest one the Assassin has rigged a trap that blows up the player, dropping them into a cave where he has set up three cannons that he stole from the barracks. The player can disable each cannon by shooting the buttons above each cannon, after which the Assassin will once again leave.

The next Mission Book will inform the player that the Minemaster may be working with the Assassin, so the player has to journey into some snowy underground caves infested with Frostula spiders. Upon finding the Minemaster, he will claim to not know anything about the Assassin, before dropping the player (through another explosive trap) down into a cave where his pet Aracold spider resides.

Upon defeating it, the next Mission Book says the Minemaster has escaped in a minecart and is taking refuge inside his mining base. The player has to make their way through the mines, eventually coming to the mining base entrance, which has been closed off. The player has to find and collect TNT from chests hidden around the mines, which they can use to blow up the entrance. Inside the mining base there are more codes to solve to progress through each area. Upon reaching the Minemaster the player has to fight him and some of his minions, but after thirty seconds the Minemaster will dig away, forcing the player to solve another code to trigger some explosives. From there the process repeats itself until reaching the last cavern, where the player can finally defeat the Minemaster.

After leaving the mines the player will be arrested by the Police, and will be imprisoned in the Ice Prison. However, the ice-block they are frozen into will somehow melt, allowing the player to escape and fight their way out. The player will discover other prisoners in the prison include the Mayor of Pollus and some of his villagers, who have the capability of crafting keys using materials dropped from some of the enemies. Using the keys the player can progress up through the levels to the top level, where they have to fight Warden Frostbite. Upon defeating him he will drop the last key, which opens up the way out of the prison. To be able to escape completely from the prison the player lastly has to shoot some Police Officers in sniping positions outside.

Outside the prison are some treacherous glacier mountain ranges home to the infamous Glacier Crawler Jockeys. The player has to use TNT to blow up some boulders and also let down a bridge in order to give the Pollus Villagers a clear path back to their village. However, upon reaching Pollus the player will find a Ghast Giant is there, which they have to defeat.

The next Mission Book will tell the player that King Icing and Queen Freeze of Glacial Castle have a huge grudge against Steve and reasons that they may have been the ones to hire the Assassin. The player has to journey to Glacial Castle, then fight their way through the four sections of the courtyard. Upon entering the central tower, King Icing will proudly proclaim that "You can't get to us!" however Queen Freeze will reveal that the way to them will be opened up if you defeat the four nobles in the four corner towers. The player can get to the corner towers by shooting Castle Guards in the smaller towers, which will create ice bridges between all the towers. By doing this they can reach and defeat each of the four nobles, then return to the central tower and climb up to the throne room. From there King Icing will begin by summoning minions and resurrecting each of the nobles in turn, forcing the player to fight each of them a second time. Once they are all defeated, King Icing and Queen Freeze will both teleport down and can be fought and defeated. Once the deed is done the player will then wonder where the Assassin is still.

However, upon leaving the throne room the player will hear the Assassin's voice, and then be teleported into a nether-like cave where the last XP Shop is. Once the player is ready they can enter a nether-like area infested with numerous monsters such as Mini Ghasts. They will encounter some more imprisoned villagers, who they must trade with to get certain blocks that can be placed to progress. Once reaching the end of the cave they will be teleported to a small room where they will see the Assassin for the first time, who it is revealed, had been Stuart all along. The Assassin tells the player Steve never really had a brother, that he made up the Stuart persona to get them to trust him, but doesn't reveal much about his motives, instead dropping the player into a large cave where the Mega Ghast resides. The Mega Ghast is very powerful, but the player can trade with more villagers to obtain Possessed Charges, which can be loaded into a cannon and fired at the Mega Ghast. The fourth Possessed Charge will destroy the Mega Ghast, and the player will be teleported into an arena-like area where the Assassin himself will begin fighting the player. The fight is long, but after defeating him the player exclaims, "I did it! I defeated the Assassin!" but the Assassin is still alive somehow, saying, "Not quite!" before blowing the player to smithereens with one last fireball. As the player respawns they hear the Assassin proclaim, "Nobody can defeat me!" and "Farewell, for soon my plans will be complete."

## Development

The main inspiration for the first *Assassin of Steve* map and which would continue to influence further projects was Hypixel's maps such as *Herobrine's Return*. *Assassin of Steve* begun development in November 2013, shortly after the release of Minecraft 1.7 and of BlazeandCave's PVP map Redstone Rampage. The map's plot was inspired by an abandoned project by Cavinator1 named *The Land of the Rising Moon*, which was mostly abandoned due to its size and the fact that 1.7's nbt and command additions made most of it outdated. The decision was made to abandon it and completely come up with a new map with 1.7's capabilities in mind.

*The* *Land of the Rising Moon*’s story had numerous elements that made it into *Assassin of Steve*. The main storyline originally centred around an “Assailant” who was very mysterious and powerful in strength and the end goal would have been to hunt him down and defeat him, just like what the main goal is in *Assassin of Steve*. However, none of the elements around Steve were present. A number of other ideas that had been made for *The Land of the Rising Moon* besides the “Assailant” also made it into *Assassin of Steve*, and many that didn’t resurfaced in *Assassin of Steve 2* instead. The Minemaster, Aracold the Giant Spider, the Ice Prison, Glacial Castle with a king and queen (they had different names in *The Land of the Rising Moon* but the same concept was there) made it into *Assassin of Steve*.

## Release and Updates

*Assassin of Steve* was released on Planet Minecraft on March 29th, 2014 for version 1.7.10. Its original trailer was uploaded on the same day. It was updated for Minecraft 1.8 on September 12th, 2014, which mostly fixed bugs and some things for the new version and balanced some other aspects of the map using command technology that had been added in 1.8.

1.9's addition of custom loot tables enabled the easy creation of items with custom colors and lore like in the Hypixel maps that *Assassin of Steve* was inspired by. The new combat system and the change where it was possible to make armor increase health points instead of armor points also made it much easier to balance the weapons and custom mobs such that there wouldn't be mobs that took 30 hits to kill in the final missions. *Assassin of Steve*’s 1.9 update was released around the same time 1.9 itself was, on March 1st, 2016. A brand new trailer was released for its 1.10 patch, because of how old and unpolished the version shown in the original trailer was.

Its Music and Lore update was released on June 1st, 2017, which added Lore Books and custom music that plays in the map if the player has a special resource pack installed.

On its fifth anniversary the special 5th Birthday Edition was released, which added cake placed all throughout the map and several presents containing books with additional info about the trilogy.

## Reception

*Assassin of Steve* gained only a modest amount of views and downloads, but was BlazeandCave's first project to receive diamonds and comments. It continued to have a small growth of views and downloads throughout 2014 and 2015, and also had a couple of small YouTubers play it, but didn't receive any major attention until it was released on MinecraftMaps.com on November 4th, 2015. Due to the then-insane traffic the site got, *Assassin of Steve* what followed was an entire month of thousands of downloads, but also endless comments of bug reports, which were promptly fixed whenever anything majorly broken came up. By the time more new maps had been published such that *Assassin of Steve* got pushed off the front page, it had amassed over 18,000 downloads from that site alone, largely dwarfing the 1000 downloads it had slowly accumulated over the year and a half since its initial release. Many more small YouTubers also played the map, including a few that finished it.

Today *Assassin of Steve* has had over 50,000 downloads across all sites.

## Legacy

*Assassin of Steve*, as well as the two later maps in the trilogy, have become something of a cult map, attracting a small but dedicated community on the Blaze and Cave discord.

## Trivia

* The minimum amount of kills needed to beat Assassin of Steve is 189 Kills.

## See also

Transcript of Assassin of Steve

Assassin of Steve 2: The Tribal Snouts

Assassin of Steve 3: Endergeddon