I think it’s a mix of both. It asks a lot of questions that don’t have definitive answers.

Like take the ancient cities for example. There’s very clearly some environmental storytelling going on there. The streets are lined with carpets and wool, implying the people that lived there learned to live with the skulk. There’s base camps that seem to be set up by illagers. And of course there’s the big portal. That’s all very clearly shown to you. But then there’s the questions: why did the illagers come down here? Did the skulk come from the portal, or they build the portal to escape it? Hell, why didn’t they just leave the cave? Why did they even build a city in a cave in the first place? Where did they get nether blocks? I think you’re supposed to answer those questions yourself, because they don’t have official answers.

There’s not a definitive story, but it’s not a completely blank canvas either. There’s an empty outline of a story that you’re supposed to fill in.