Hot out of Minecon 2015 is the first trailer for Telltale’s most random adaptation so far: Minecraft.
To their credit, Telltale isn’t playing coy with what kind of story they’ll be telling in the upcoming episodic adventure, but even after watching the trailer and reading the official plot synopsis, I’m still not entirely sure what the heck they’re going for.
What is the game about?
Minecraft: Story Mode will follow a character named Jesse (voiced by Patton Oswalt), a normal dude living in a normal block-shaped world. He and his friends are huge fans of a group called the Order of the Stone, a crew of legendary adventurers who slayed an Ender Dragon.
While attending EnderCon (presumably, a convention for people who are fans of… adventuring?), Jesse and his friends find themselves in the middle of “something dreadful,” and must journey to find the Order of the Stone in order to save the world.
That seems fairly straightforward, I’m just having trouble figuring out what exactly makes this a “Minecraft” story, aside from the look and aesthetic of course.
What else do we know about it?
We know that the game will more or less set up its own original Minecraft-inspired world, and will likewise feature a cast of original characters voiced by Brian Posehn, Ashley Johnson, Scott Porter, Martha Plimpton, Dave Fennoy, Corey Feldman, Billy West, and Paul Reubens.
Given how Minecraft is an open-ended sandbox game with only the loosest semblance of worldbuilding, it’s probably no surprise that Telltale is crafting their vision of it from the ground up. On the other hand, unless you’re going to be doing a ton of block-based construction in it, I have no idea what the license is doing for the game aside from just name-brand recognition (a trap that Telltale has managed to avoid pretty expertly so far).
I have full faith in Telltale after a pretty solid string of amazing adaptations though, so we’ll have to wait and see exactly what they’re planning.
When is it out?
The game will be released in installments, in typical Telltale fashion, with the first episode of Minecraft: Story Mode arriving sometime later this year on the PC, PS4, PS3, Xbox One, Xbox 360, and mobile devices.
