Story Mode begins a new Arc and a new beginning…
It was announced recently that Minecraft: Story Mode wouldn’t end at Episode 5, but instead 3 more episodes are planned. As it stands, Episode 5 has just launched and has set up a whole new story for Jesse and the New Order of the Stone. But has it been a success?
Episode 5 picks up a while after the end of the Nether Storm arc, Jesse and his friends are renowned heroes who begin searching a temple that Ivor has given them a tip on. Sure enough it has a rare flint and steel item that glows mysteriously, but the group are ambushed by Aiden and his group who used to be the Ocelots, but are now known as the Blaze Rods. Aiden has become the leader after ditching Lukas and has become obsessed with Jesse’s fame…but they retreat for now.
Jesse and company return to their fans to find that Ivor has created a skull house with lava flowing from it, to the dismay of the residents who fear their safety. You can choose to let Ivor keep his house or order its demolition, but Ivor is soon in a state of over-excitement when he hears about Jesse’s find in the temple. He believes that there were a group of builders before the Order of the Stone and are in possession of a powerful item called the Eversource that gives them unlimited resources, but the entrance is back at the temple. So the heroes (and Ivor) pack up and return to the temple…
The group find a portal that activates with the Flint and Steel, but Aiden then steals them after and runs into the new portal. Jesse and friends enter the portal too only to find themselves deserted on a floating island with a Sky City in the distance, which the group reach by turning the island into a bridge…only to find out that building is in fact illegal in Sky City without approval. The Order starts to pick up the trace on the Blaze Rods, but it soon becomes clear that Aiden has reached The Founder first and puts a search out on Jesse and his group for illegal building.
You then get the choice to get arrested and find the Eversource from behind bars, or run away to join a resistance group who are opposed to the Founder’s ways. Either way, you come face-to-face with the Eversource and the revelation is pretty amusing, that is until Aiden comes to steal it for himself and throws Jesse and the Founder off Sky City to their supposed deaths since nothing exists below the city…or so the people believed…instead, they both land in a river and make their way back up by building upwards.
Sky City is now awash with monsters thanks to Aiden and the Blaze Rods, but he is easily defeated and the residents of the city flee to the surface. The heroes then head home through a newly found portal, only to find that they are now in a labyrinth of other portals and have no idea how to get back…at which point, the credits roll. Now that would have been a pretty cruel end to the series if they kept it at 5 episodes, so I’m glad to see they have extended it to 8.
As a whole, I was glued to this episode and personally found it the best of the bunch. Jesse is clearly still hurting after losing Reuben the Pig at the end of Episode 4, a moment that nearly reduced me to tears too…I honestly haven’t felt that sad about a fictional animal since Seymour the Dog from Futurama. The episode just doesn’t slow down and it feels like the right length, while you don’t get a lot of different choices to make this time around…I don’t feel like the episode needed them.
The Verdict
After that ending, I’m so pleased that we are getting 3 more episodes this season. Episode 5 is definitely my favourite so far and I can only imagine what the rest will be like. I was dubious about starting a new story arc with one episode to go, but with more coming soon…it looks like it’s going to pay off.