The Longhorn

The Longhorn is a horror mod made around stalking, tension, and not knowing when something is actually going to happen.

Instead of just spawning a monster that runs at you every night, The Longhorn is meant to watch you first. It can stay in the distance, follow you around, appear near your base, and slowly become more dangerous the longer you survive.

The main goal is to make nights actually feel unsafe again.

Recommended Shader

I really recommend playing this mod with Hysteria Shaders.

The mod still works perfectly fine without shaders, but Hysteria makes a huge difference with the atmosphere, darkness, fog, lighting, and how hard The Longhorn can be to spot.

A lot of the horror comes from barely being able to see it standing somewhere in the dark, so without shaders some encounters can be a lot easier to notice and not nearly as scary.

Hysteria is not required, but it is definitely the way I recommend playing the mod if you want the full experience.

Stalking

The Longhorn does not always attack as soon as it appears.

During the first few nights it will usually spend more time watching you than actually trying to kill you.

You might see it standing between trees.

You might catch it watching your base.

It could follow you from a distance or disappear before you even get a good look at it.

Sometimes nothing happens at all, and that is kind of the point.

You are supposed to start questioning whether it is actually nearby or if you are just being paranoid.

Learning Behavior

The Longhorn has a learning system that lets it build information about the player over time.

The longer it spends stalking you, the more dangerous future encounters can become.

It is not meant to act exactly the same every night and the stalking phase is actually important to how it develops.

The idea is to make it feel more like something that is hunting you instead of a normal Minecraft mob with a basic attack AI.

Night Progression

The first few nights are mostly focused around stalking.

As more nights pass, The Longhorn can become more confident and aggressive.

Eventually it may start getting closer, chasing you, or attacking.

Not every encounter is guaranteed to turn into a chase though.

Sometimes it may continue stalking instead.

That means seeing it does not always tell you what is about to happen.

Story and Lore

There is also a story connected to The Longhorn.

You can find a damaged book written by someone who was surviving alone in the forest before you.

At first the entries are mostly normal, but they slowly start mentioning strange things happening around the person's cabin.

Sounds in the forest.

Something watching from the trees.

Things getting closer at night.

The story continues as the person realizes that they are being hunted and eventually things start going very wrong.

Finding the book gives you a little more context about what The Longhorn is and what happened before you arrived.

Survival Focused

The Longhorn is mainly made for normal survival worlds.

It works best when you actually spend time building a base, exploring, mining, and surviving through multiple nights.

Spawning the creature manually and immediately trying to fight it skips a lot of what the mod is actually built around.

The stalking and progression systems are supposed to develop over time.

Multiplayer

The mod can also be played with friends.

The Longhorn is still designed around the same stalking and nighttime behavior, but having other people around can make encounters play out differently.

Just because you have friends with you does not mean you are safe.

Current Beta

The Longhorn is currently in beta.

The main systems are working and the mod is playable, but there may still be bugs, weird AI behavior, balancing issues, or things that need more polish.

This is the first public release, so feedback is really helpful.

If something breaks, crashes, gets stuck, or just does something that seems completely wrong, feel free to report it on the CurseForge page.

I will be continuing to work on the AI, learning system, stalking behavior, animations, sounds, encounters, lore, and overall horror experience.

Requirements

Minecraft: 1.21.1

Mod Loader: NeoForge

Java: 21

Required Dependency: GeckoLib

Recommended

Hysteria Shaders

Not required, but heavily recommended if you want the mod to be as dark and scary as it was intended to be played.

Credits

Created by 0wenDevelops

If you make a video, stream, showcase, or other content using The Longhorn, please credit the mod and include a link to the official CurseForge page somewhere in the description or post.

Please do not reupload, redistribute, modify, sell, or publish altered versions of the mod.

If you want to share The Longhorn with someone, send them the official CurseForge page.