The Expanse is a futuristic Amazon/SyFy series set in a distant future where humanity has colonized the entire solar system and continues its exploration in every corner of the galaxy. And it's in this universe that Telltale's new game takes place, which we'll explore in this review.
As usual with games from this developer, the game is released in episodic form, and we'll evaluate each episode in this review.
The Expanse: A Telltale Series is a third-person adventure game whose story is presented in episodic form. For those who have watched the series, this game is a kind of prequel to the events we see in the TV show. In it, we control Camina Drummer, until then a scrap dealer who, together with her crew, explores spaceships in search of, obviously, valuable scrap.
The first episode basically introduces Drummer and the other members of the crew, and it's quite short, lasting around one to two hours (in general, that's how long all the other episodes last), but it does a good job of introducing these characters.
The crew picked up a distress call from a ship, but when they found it, they saw that only the wreckage remained. Bodies of the destroyed ship's tribulation float in space, separated from their heads, which were brutally ripped from their bodies, possibly by pirates.
And this is the start of this journey, which looks very promising. The characters have been introduced, but they have not been explored much yet. In the next few episodes we may see a good evolution in their development. But the atmosphere that has been imposed, heavy, full of tension and mystery, is very exciting to see what the future holds.
How does the gameplay work?
For those who don't know, the gameplay of Telltale games is very characteristic and The Expanse is no different, although there are some additions that I don't remember seeing in other games from the studio.
This game is co-developed between Telltale and Deck Nine, responsible for the highly successful Life is Strange series of games. Which might indicate a good story, but is it?
At first, we can control Drummer in the scenery and interact with objects. There are some more complex scenes that require more than just walking, and in these scenes, most of the movements are carried out through Quick Time Events, the famous QTE, which are already a Telltale trademark.
A novelty, but otherwise...
But in this game, a new type of action was introduced, which is to move around in zero gravity, similar to what we see in Dead Space, for example. This mechanic worked very well and was a nice surprise, I have to say. At the moment, the scenarios are much more open than usual, despite being quite limited in terms of exploration.
But apart from that, everything is the same as we've come to expect from the franchise. The dialogues are very present and we can choose how to respond or act at a given moment. And it's important to choose well what you do, because your choices affect the direction the narrative will take, a Telltale trademark.
We also have a more stealthy gameplay, since unlike the previous episode, we have some direct confrontations with other enemies. In these stealthy moments, you basically have to dodge some of the enemies' detection "beams". Nothing too difficult to deal with, even when we talk about the direct combat scene present here, which again consists of pressing the right buttons at the right time, nothing more than what we already have in Telltale's games. One thing that has bothered me is the excessive number of loading screens.
What about the graphics?
Well, as far as the graphics are concerned, I have to confess that I was expecting a greater evolution in relation to the previous games, although there is an evolution. It's been a long time since Telltale released a game, and I know that for a large part of that time the studio has been at a standstill, but even so, I was hoping for a little more.
Well, these are the conclusions I was able to draw from this first episode, and I'd say that the first impressions were very good. This story looks very promising, let's see how the game develops over the next few episodes.
A lot of tension
Each episode begins exactly where the last one left off, with a cliffhanger that makes the game very tense from the very first minute. However, this doesn't last long before the game returns to its normal state, which is a very slow, almost halting progression. But this at least serves to deepen the relationship between the characters.
The characters themselves have the necessary screen time for us to care about them, and this makes the story progress in a tense way, after all, depending on our choices, any one of them could die. This implies, as I said, a somewhat slow progression, but one that has its moments of action and rush.
The story itself is good, mainly because of the well-developed characters and the little bit of the universe they show us (I haven't watched the series, so I don't know much about it). But don't expect any super complex plot or anything like that, as I said at the beginning, we're scrap collectors, and our challenges are those we acquire in the middle of this mission.
Closing Balance
Well, the game is divided into five chapters, each lasting around one to two hours, short but able to keep you entertained every time you return to them. I confess it's not my favorite way to play, unlike the series, I don't think this episodic way of playing games works well for me.
In terms of gameplay, we also don't have any revolution compared to what we already know from other Telltale games, but we do have some very welcome additions. The characters are undoubtedly the strong point of this game, motivating us to want to finish this journey. But it depends on your taste, as it's a very niche game.
See also:
Smalland: Survive the Wilds hits consoles in December
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