It’s untrue to suggest that Minecraft doesn’t have a story: it has thousands. It’s just that the vast majority of them weren’t made up by the game’s developer Mojang.
One of the reasons millions of children love playing Minecraft is that it’s a digital set for their own stories, whether they’re playing alone or with friends. Meanwhile, popular YouTubers like The Diamond Minecart and Stampy have built huge online audiences by spinning their own yarns within the game.
This is why Mojang’s moves into storytelling – through spin-off game Minecraft: Story Mode and the in-development Minecraft movie – is a fascinating risk. It’s one the company is well aware of too.
“We don’t want any story that we make, whether it’s a movie or a book, to create some sort of ‘this is the official Minecraft, this is how you play the game’ thing,” chief operating officer Vu Bui told the Guardian in October 2014.
“When coming up with a story, we want to make sure it is just a story within Minecraft, as opposed to the story within Minecraft.”
So, Minecraft: Story Mode is a – not the – story set within Minecraft, created in partnership with developer Telltale Games – well respected for its adventure games based on The Walking Dead, Game of Thrones, Borderlands and other properties.
Like those this will be an episodic adventure, told over five episodes, TV-style. The first – The Order of the Stone – was released this week for PC, Mac, Xbox 360 and Xbox One, and PS3 and PS4, with Android and iOS versions to follow.
The story is set within the world of Minecraft, focusing on a group of friends (and a pet pig) trying to track down a team of famous adventurers in order to save the world. You play a character named Jesse who can be a boy or a girl – a change from the original male-only plan – and one of three races.
For the most part, the gameplay involves watching the story unfold, while being prompted regularly with multiple-choice conversational or action questions.
There are also action sequences and fight scenes every so often, although nothing hugely challenging: this game wants you to find your way through its story, rather than to kill you off if you can’t hit a key or button fast enough. A good thing, because the combat is one of the game’s least fun features.
It’s all about the branching narrative, too: rather than shepherding you through a single storyline, there are real choices to be made that will affect what you see and do, and how the other characters react to you.
While some scenes do involve walking around, the general restriction on your movement and actions can feel jarring, given that it’s an accurate representation of Minecraft that you’re walking around in. No diving out of the plot progression to dig a home out of a hillside here.
That said, there are lots of references that will delight Minecraft veterans young and old alike: from Jesse’s wooden sword breaking at exactly the wrong moment, to neatly-worked pig and chicken jokes. Story Mode is steeped in Minecraft culture, but handles it with a light, humorous touch.
The first episode clocks in at around two hours, with four more to come. At $24.99 (just over £16) that feels good value, especially thinking about children’s likely desire to replay the game to discover the bits they missed first time round.
Adults may be put off by the game’s length and relatively high amount of watching rather than playing. But for children, Minecraft: Story Mode looks the perfect midpoint between playing Minecraft and watching Minecraft videos on YouTube.
A new story in the world that they love, but one in which they’re participating, not just watching – which isn’t afraid to raise some sensitive issues around topics such as friendship. Roll on episode two.
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