Where Minecraft: Story Mode's first four episodes were all one big story that ended in the main characters forming a new Order of the Stone, and Episode 5 kicking off a new adventure, even that story more or less ended there. So, while Episode 6: A Portal to Mystery, does rely some on the events of the previous games, it is very much a stand-alone adventure.

In Episode 5: Order Up!, Jessie, Petra, Lukas and Ivor discover an enchanted Flint & Steel that takes them to a strange new realm. When their adventure ended in Sky City, they didn't end up back in their own realm, but were instead dropped off in a hallway of portals. A Portal to Mystery has the Order of the Stone going through one of these portals and into a very dangerous situation.

Minecraft: Story Mode - Episode 6: A Portal to Mystery dumps the heroes into a world of two moons, perpetual night, and a sea of zombies. After learning of a potential safe area, the quartet weave their way through the mobs in order to get to a creepy mansion where the danger comes in a very different, and much more devious, flavor.

Once in the mansion, The Order of the Stone meets seven new characters, some of whom Minecraft fans might recognize from their YouTube channels. Among these are CaptainSparklez, StampyCat, Dan TDM, Lizzy, and Stacy. It becomes apparent quickly that while the mansion keeps the people safe from the roaming zombies outside, no one is safe in the house itself. A trap involving poison-tipped arrows takes out one of the guests and you hear the first words of the mansion's owner, The White Pumpkin. Apparently, he is after something that one of the guests has in their inventory. Now it's a race against time to not only find out what The White Pumpkin is after, but who is controlling all of the traps that are causing the mansion's guests to drop like flies.

Minecraft: Story Mode - Episode 6: A Portal to Mystery feels like an old Agatha Christie mystery. A group of people are invited to a strange mansion and are being killed off one-by-one. It soon becomes apparent that one of the guests is the killer and it is up to you to uncover the plot and find out what is really going on.

Of course, this version of the story has a Minecraft slant to it. As the investigation continues, Jessie starts to learn more about the other guests in order to figure out who has the redstone and alchemy chops to make the traps that are getting triggered. Jessie also finds a series of tunnels and caves going between the walls and floors of the mansion. It will take a combination of deductive reasoning (though not much) and building skills in order to reveal the truth and get away from this strange realm.

It's hard to tell what will come after Minecraft: Story Mode - Episode 6: A Portal to Mystery. This episode ends with The Order going through another portal, but you aren't told where it leads. It could be Jessie's home realm, it could be the hall of portals again, or it could be someplace else all together. It also feels like there won't be too many repercussions from A Portal to Mystery that will haunt The Order in the next adventures, as pretty much everything wrapped up by the time the episode ended. All we really know right now is that Episode 7 is called Access Denied and there is at least one more adventure after that, so it's unlikely that the group will see their home realm at the start of the next episode.

A Portal to Mystery was an odd experience. It both served up a lot of fan service by way of the YouTubers and took on a classic mystery setting in a very Minecraft way. While the rest of Minecraft: Story Mode is required in order to get this newest episode, you don't really need the events of the first five episodes to play through this one, though doing so could easily spoil major plot points of those earlier episodes.