Minecraft has always focused on the creative, open nature of the game's world rather than try to craft any kind of story-based single-player mode, but today Mojang has announced a deal with Telltale Games that will lead an episodic game called Minecraft: Story Mode. The content will launch next year on "Xbox consoles, PlayStation consoles, PC, Mac, iOS, and Android-based devices."

You can also get this news in game form, if you'd like, and the dialog in this little widget actually explains why the new game is being made. "We've begun to realize that there's a massive demand for fiction set in the Minecraft universe. People love engaging the world, whether they're building, adventuring, or role-playing an awesome Creeper slayer," the game says. "The tricky bit is working out how to explore a story without diluting Minecraft itself."

This game will dig into the story without setting down "official lore," and will only be one interpretation of Minecraft's world and logic.

"Minecraft: Story Mode will be released episodically, just like The Wolf Among Us, The Walking Dead or the recent Tales from the Borderlands, which is another developer-collaboration series between Telltale Games and Gearbox Software," Mojang's official blog post stated.

"We're not intending on creating an 'official' story for Steve, or explaining the world of Minecraft in detail. It will be a cool game."

The Telltale Blog post goes into greater detail.

"Minecraft: Story Mode will be an all-new narrative-driven game series developed by Telltale in collaboration with Mojang. Set in the world of Minecraft, the series will feature an original story, driven by player choice," Telltale stated. "It will not be an add-on for Minecraft, but rather a separate stand-alone product that will premiere in 2015 on consoles, computers and mobile devices."

Mojang was purchased by Microsoft for $2.5 billion in September of this year, but it doesn't look like that acquisition will slow down multiplatform development of this upcoming title. The game is being made with Telltale and "members of the community," according to Telltale, in order to be as "Minecrafty" as possible, although we don't quite know what that means yet.