Minecraft: Story Mode – Episode 6: A Portal to Mystery continues where Order Up! left off. It’s unclear at this point whether we’ll see a return to any of the narrative elements of the initial run of episodes, as Jesse and company’s latest adventure can almost be approached as a standalone experience. A Portal to Mystery is certainly an unexpected story, as it not only represents a brief departure from the freewheeling globetrotting and dimension-hopping of the last five episodes -- it goes somewhere I never thought this series would take us.

After their misadventures in Sky City, Jesse and friends have stumbled upon a vast corridor full of multicolored portals. A Portal to Mystery begins with our heroes finding themselves in a strange new world… that happens to be completely swarming with zombies. A conveniently-timed invitation to a creepy-looking mansion has them coming face to face with actual Minecraft community members who are popular on YouTube.

Before they discover the nature of their host, an unseen presence begins murdering them one by one. And it isn’t long before it becomes apparent that the killer is among the group. So through a series of confusing and tragic mishaps, Jesse is appointed the Sherblock Holmes (see what I did there?) of the case. Think of it as L.A. Noire with training wheels and less obviously bad acting.

I know, not exactly what you expected from Minecraft: Story Mode, right? The series has always straddled the line between poking fun at how death works in Minecraft and the actual drama of it, but a murder mystery is kind of a shocking turn for this mostly-family-friendly series.

Don’t worry; it’s all handled tastefully and the intrigue is fun, even though the true identity of the killer is painfully obvious to anyone with even the slightest idea of how these kinds of stories work. And while some of it might have you groaning and yelling at how dumb the characters act, it’s still a welcome diversion from the same old bad guys and the same old locales.

Minecraft: Story Mode – Episode 6: A Portal to Mystery doesn’t really put the series on track to meet its presumed endgame. At this point, I wouldn’t be surprised if Telltale just decided to keep it going indefinitely. Releases like these make the series as a whole appear kind of messy, but nobody should be approaching this with the expectations of high-impact serial drama on the same level as most of Telltale’s body of work. If you’re still with this series, A Portal to Mystery will satisfy.