Straight from the “No One Could Have Predicted This” department is a new announcement courtesy of Mojang (creators of Minecraft) and Telltale (revivers of the adventure game genre). The two companies are teaming up to create Minecraft: Story Mode, an episodic adventure game in the usual Telltale vein that takes place within the blocky, make-whatever-you-can-imagine world of Minecraft.
As to be expected, this isn’t going to be some add-on or expansion to the existing Minecraft games. Instead, the game will be a stand-alone, episodic experience in which Telltale crafts a story and players make choices that pay off sooner or later in the game. Perhaps the most interesting part of the announcement is the statement that the game is being made “in collaboration” with Mojang and members of the Minecraft community. Whether this means Telltale is actually taking input from Minecraft fans, or is simply fancy lip service for “We look at what players have created over the years and work some of that into the episodes” is something everyone will eventually find when the game ships.
As to be expected, the series is going out to every conceivable platform, all the PlayStations, Xboxes, PCs and iOS/Android devices, leaving only Nintendo owners out in the cold, but hey, they have Mario and Zelda. The only time frame for the release of the new episodic series is pegged at 2015, but with both Tales from Borderlands and Game of Thrones already starting their runs, it looks like adventure game fans have at least one more title to fill in the gaps between episodes of those other games.
