Minecraft: Story Mode

Minecraft: Story Mode was an episodic point-and-click narrative-driven graphic adventure based on the sandbox video game Minecraft, released in October 2015 across multiple platforms with a Windows 10 release on December 16, 2015, a Wii U release on January 21, 2016, an Apple TV release on August 24, 2016, and a Nintendo Switch release on August 22, 2017. The game was developed by Mojang Studios, the developer of Minecraft, in collaboration with Telltale Games.

In June 2018, and Telltale signed a partnership agreement, and the first season of the game Minecraft: Story Mode was announced to be released on Netflix on November 7, 2018. Due to unknown reasons, the release date was pushed to November 27. That day, the first three episodes of the series were released and the last two episodes were released on December 5th.

Music for the game was composed by Anadel, an atmospheric folk band based in California. The game follows the episodic format that Telltale has used for its previous titles, where player choices and actions have significant effects on later story elements.

A sequel, Minecraft: Story Mode - Season Two, was released on July 11, 2017, featuring new storylines and characters.

On May 31, 2019, it was announced that Minecraft: Story Mode would no longer be supported following the closure of Telltale Games. The servers for Story Mode were discontinued on June 25, 2019, meaning that the episodes are no longer downloadable. Despite being discontinued, the Xbox One and PlayStation 4 versions are playable on and  respectively via backwards compatibility.

Voice cast




Jesse and Friends

 * as Jesse (male), a huge fan of everything going on in Minecraft, as well as the main character
 * as Jesse (female)
 * as Reuben, Jesse's pet pig who is smart and funny.
 * as Axel, who is fiercely loyal to his friends but can appear to act impulsively.
 * as Petra, who is tough, shrewd, and very protective of her friends.
 * as Olivia, who is assertive and smart but lacks patience.
 * as Lukas, a member of the Ocelots who later befriends Jesse and his / her group.

Order of the Stone members

 * as Gabriel the Warrior, a powerful fighter who appears at EnderCon
 * as Ellegaard the Redstone Engineer, someone who is very smart but whose whereabouts are slightly hazy
 * as Magnus the Rogue, an impressive griefer who appreciates the "art" of griefing and who is also hard to find
 * as Soren the Architect, a mysterious person who is the hardest to find and whose whereabouts have not been known for a while
 * as Ivor, a former member of the Order who distrusted Soren after the command block incident and who has vowed to demolish the world of Minecraft

Old Builder members

 * as Isa, the Founder of Sky City.
 * as Cassie Rose, the person who reveals herself as the White Pumpkin.
 * as Harper, the creator of PAMA.
 * as Hadrian, the leader of the Old Builders.
 * as Mevia, the Enforcer.
 * as Otto, a person who prefers to make sure rules are followed.

Other characters

 * as the narrator, Siggie, and the fanboy
 * as Maya, Ivy, and the fangirl
 * as Gill, a member of the Ocelots, later known as the Blaze Rods.
 * as Aiden, Otis, Schoolboy, TNT Dustin, and Griefer #2
 * Jason Topolski as Reuben (the usher), Disco Mickey, Griefer #5, and PAMA
 * Erin Yvette as the announcer of the Endercon building competition, Mabel, Farmer Gloria, and Griefer #1
 * Lydia Winters as herself
 * Owen Jones as himself
 * Ursula Taherian as Nohr, a griefer of Boom Town.
 * as Griefer #3
 * Michael Gambino as Calvin and Griefer #4
 * A.J. Riebli III as the announcer of the Death Bowl
 * as Reginald, the loyal Captain of the Guard
 * as Milo, the leader of the Build Club.
 * as Stampy Cat
 * Stacy Hinojosa as stacyplays
 * as DanTDM
 * Elizabeth Dwyer as LDShadowLady
 * as CaptainSparklez
 * as TorqueDawg
 * as the White Pumpkin (voice)
 * as Em
 * as Nell and Clutch
 * John Sanders as Facemeat, one of the Gladiators
 * as Slab, one of the Gladiators

Additional voices

 * Ashley Albert
 * Will Beckman
 * Katrina Carras
 * Shelly Shenoy
 * Arthur von Nagel

Development


The idea for Minecraft: Story Mode came around the end of 2012 when Telltale was engaged in work for Tales from the Borderlands, an episodic series based on the Borderlands series. The idea of developing stories around other established video game franchises led the team to brainstorm the idea for a Minecraft-related game, given that the game was essentially a "blank canvas" for storytelling, according to Job Stauffer, and would create an interesting challenge. Telltale began negotiations with Mojang Studios at GDC 2013, and began work on the title shortly thereafter. Stauffer noted that Microsoft's acquisition of Mojang Studios was not a factor in the game's development, as their interaction with Mojang Studios began well before Microsoft's offers.

Telltale opted to create a new main character of Jesse for Minecraft: Story Mode instead of using the default "Steve" and "Alex" characters from Minecraft, feeling that they did not want to attempt to rewrite how players already saw these characters in the game. Other primary characters in the game are loosely designed around archetypes of common player-characters for Minecraft, such as those who engage in building, fighting, or griefing other players. The game does not attempt to provide any background for some concepts in Minecraft, such as the creepers, to avoid the various fan interpretations of such elements, though they will be elements of the game's story.

Stauffer stated that the game's story was intended to be family-friendly, similar to The Goonies or Ghostbusters; their intended content would be equivalent to a PG-13 or PEGI-12 rating. A number of the voice actors are alumni of such films of the 1980s such as Corey Feldman who starred in The Goonies, and the game includes various references to these types of films. Stauffer reflected that while Telltale's more recent games like The Walking Dead were more mature stories, their original adventure games like Sam & Max and Strong Bad's Cool Game for Attractive People were written as family-friendly, and that they consider their approach to Story Mode as "part of our DNA". The story was written to be accessible both to existing players of Minecraft – both novice and advanced players – and to new audiences outside of the game.

Minecraft: Story Mode was formally announced in December 2014 as a collaboration project between Mojang Studios and Telltale Games; the announcement was presented as an interactive adventure game named "Info Quest II". Its first trailer was released during the MINECON convention in early July 2015. Telltale confirmed that they would release the game for the Wii U, representing the first time a Minecraft game has been released on a Nintendo platform.

On August 24, 2015, Winters posted on Twitter that she had completed voiceover work for the game but didn't specify whether she voiced a character or did some narration for the game.

On August 28, 2015, it was announced that the player will be able to choose the appearance of the main character, Jesse.

On October 7, 2015, Anadel, an atmospheric folk band based in, announced that they had composed the music for the game.

Episodes
The game is separated into five episodes, released in intervals between 2 weeks and 3 months.

Supplemental episodes
On March 22, 2016, Telltale Games announced that three episodes will be available throughout 2016 as downloadable content. These episodes will not be available under the season pass and as such must be purchased separately. In order to download these episodes, you must have at least one episode from the main series.

Trailers

 * MINECON 2015 Trailer


 * Episode 1 - The Order of the Stone Trailer


 * Episode 2 - Assembly Required Trailer


 * Episode 3 - The Last Place You Look Trailer


 * Episode 4 - A Block and a Hard Place Trailer


 * Episode 5 - Order Up! Trailer


 * Episode 6 - A Portal to Mystery Trailer


 * Episode 7 - Access Denied Trailer


 * Episode 8 - A Journey's End? Trailer

Achievements
There are 32 achievements in Story Mode (33 on PlayStation), worth 1,000 Gamerscore on Xbox and Windows 10.

Supplemental achievements
There are eighteen achievements available as downloadable content, worth 375 Gamerscore on Xbox and Windows 10.

System requirements
According to this page:

Supported languages
According to the Steam page, the following languages are available in the game: