Minecraft:Story Mode Released!
Minecraft: Story Mode pays tribute to the past as it tells a story aimed at the next generation.
The latest episodic adventure series from Telltale Games spins a grand adventure in the universe of Minecraft, Mojang's ever-popular sandbox game. It's a head-scratching concept: Minecraft has never had a story, of any kind; it's always been about making your own fun and coming up with your own stories through play. However, Telltale makes the concept work by putting narrative first. I didn't have much familiarity with Minecraft going into Story Mode, but I got wrapped up in my hero's journey all the same.
The player character, Jesse, can be male or female
Minecraft: Story Mode is a much more family-oriented experience than anything in recent memory from Telltale, with the writers building in plenty of goofy moments to lighten the story's world-in-peril stakes. Story Mode feels like a pastiche of beloved '80s films: the kids-going-on-an-unsupervised-adventure setup of The Goonies, the self-discovery of Stand by Me; the us-against-the-world feel of The Breakfast Club. There's also a dollop of Lord of the Rings in the game's opening episode, "The Order of the Stone" — namely, ordinary people getting caught up in cataclysmic events, complete with a "Breaking of the Fellowship"-esque sequence at the end.
That's a smart move that opened up Minecraft: Story Mode to me as someone who isn't exactly a Minecraft fan. Story Mode is kid-friendly but not dumbed down, touching on topics like bullying, historical cover-ups and growing older.
Your party is led by the player character, Jesse, who can be male or female, depending on your choice. Jesse and their friends — loyal meathead Axel and smart, self-confident Olivia, plus Jesse's pet pig, Reuben — are a talented team of builders hoping to topple the perennial champs at the Minecraft convention EnderCon.
But a series of unfortunate events at EnderCon unleashes a Wither, a terrifying monster that threatens to consume everything in existence. Jesse and company realize they must enlist the help of the Order of the Stone, a group of four fabled heroes. And so the gang sets out on the trail of the legendary adventurers.
