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Parents' Guide to Minecraft Story Mode

Here's out guide to Minecraft Story Mode. This week compiled by journalist Jordan Erica Webber.

1. Genre

Minecraft: Story Mode is an episodic adventure game in five parts.

It tells a story based in the well-known world of Minecraft. As a female or male character called Jesse, players solve puzzles, fight zombies, and talk to other characters to progress the story. Conversations involve choosing from multiple potential responses that each have consequences for the story and relationships in the game. Action is played out with quick-time events.

While Minecraft: Story Mode is visually similar to Minecraft itself, it plays more like other episodic adventure games from the developer, Telltale Games, like The Walking Dead.

2. Story

The story revolves around Jesse and their group of friends, who want to find a group of four adventurers called The Order of the Stone, who have slayed an Ender Dragon, in order to save the world from oblivion. Each member of the Order is the best at what they do, and represents a different kind of Minecraft player: Warrior, Redstone Engineer, Grief-er, and Architect.

3. Developer

Developer Telltale Games is known for these episodic adventure games, like The Walking Dead and Game of Thrones games. Minecraft: Story Mode is more family-friendly, like their Back to the Future game.

4. Format

Minecraft: Story Mode is available for PC, PS4 and Xbox One, PS3 and Xbox 360, and iOS and Android. It will also be coming to Wii U in the near future. A Vita version is likely but unconfirmed.

Although unconfirmed this is likely to cost around £4/$5 per episode or £20/$25 for the whole season. There will also be a retail season pass disc for consoles that is scheduled to be released on the launch day of episode 1 for £24/$30.

5. Duration and Difficulty

Each episode tells a self-contained story as part of the larger whole of the series, and each is a couple of hours long.

Although the focus is on narrative, some decisions and action moments have time limits that may leave younger players unable to choose a response in time, in which case a “no response” action is triggered.

6. PEGI Rating

In the UK and Europe, PEGI rates Minecraft: Story Mode as only appropriate for those aged 12 and older for “mild bad language”.

The GRA expands on its PEGI rating by explaining that the game has “frequent use of mild language” including words like “ass”, “crap”, and “piss”.

7. Themes

Although Minecraft itself is aimed at younger players PEGI 7+ the Story Mode adventure looks to engage an older audience with its controversial PEGI 12+ rating. Although the rating is mainly from language in the game, it also includes suspense moments and jump scares that may unsettle younger players. Zombies and spiders attack characters including a helpless friendly pig.

Positively, Minecraft Story Mode engages with themes of friendship, survival and creativity. With professional voice acting and musical score there is considerable substance to the experience.

8. Why people play

Minecraft is an incredibly popular game, and different people play it for different reasons. Players who have an emotional attachment to the world of Minecraft will enjoy the opportunity to experience a story based in that world.

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Andrew Robertson
Andy Robertson is the editor of AskAboutGames and has written for national press and broadcast about video games and families for over 15 years. He has just published the Taming Gaming book with its Family Video Game Database.