Minecon 2015: Telltale and Mojang drop first ‘Minecraft: Story Mode’ trailer and cast details

LONDON — In front of 10,000 hardcore fans gathered at Minecon 2015 in London, Telltale Studios and Mojang debuted the first trailer of the upcoming ‘Mincecraft: Story Mode’ adventure series.

The project is a collaboration between the two companies that creates an interactive narrative within the Minecraft universe. Players make different choices for the main character at different points, which shapes the story.

The first of five planned episodes will be released sometime this year. Each episode will cost $4.99 to download and will be available on just about every place you can currently play Minecraft.

Telltale and Mojang emphasized that Story Mode will not be a mod for Minecraft but rather an entire separate instance that gamers purchase, download, and play.

The collaboration started about a year ago, according to Job Stauffer, director of creative communications for Petaluma, Calif.-based Telltale.

“We’re huge Minecraft fans,” he said during an afternoon panel at Minecon. “We see a lot of similarities between what we’re doing and Minecraft, which is driven by what you the users are doing. At Telltale, we’re doing something similar. Our games are like playable television.”

Players control a character named Jesse, who is voiced by Patton Oswalt. Other voice actors in the series include Paul Reubens (Pee-Wee Herman!) and Corey Feldman (Goonies!). In the adventure, Jesse is new to Minecraft and is discovering how to play with some more experienced friends.

“Jesse and his friends are huge fans of Minecraft,” Stauffer said. “He and his friends make their way to Endercon. They wander [to] some places they’re not supposed to. And things go horribly wrong.”

Stauffer said the interactive experience is trying to capture the spirit of movies he liked when he was a kid, like Goonies and Ghostbusters.

“They don’t make movies like that any more,” he said.

Lydia Winters, a brand director at Mojang, said on the panel that a team from Mojang worked closely with Telltale to develop the characters and the story.

“We took it very seriously,” she said. “We really wanted a team to integrate with Telltale.”

Stauffer promised the first episode would land this year but wouldn’t give a specific date yet.

“It’ll be sooner than you think,” he said.