Highlights
- The Expanse: A Telltale Series focuses on relationship-building and exploration, with players' approach to exploration having the biggest impact on the series narrative.
- The game offers players a lot of freedom in decision-making, but players who approach it like a traditional Telltale series may miss out on crucial interactions.
- The exploration segments in the game allow players to discover hidden items that can be crucial to the narrative, emphasizing the importance of every decision made during exploration.
The Expanse: A Telltale Series marks the triumphant return of Telltale Games, following its acquisition by LCG Entertainment. The series is developed by Deck Nine Games, known best for its work on the Life is Strange franchise. Telltale's approach to both gameplay and decision-making has evolved in its time away, with The Expanse focusing primarily on relationship-building and exploration. However, the freedom of choice struggles alongside this approach. Episode 2 highlights a flaw in Telltale's implementation of this freedom, as many players are unaware that their minor decisions during exploration have the biggest impact on the series narrative.
The Expanse: A Telltale Series is based on James S.A. Corey’s hit book and television series, and provides an original prequel story for fan-favorite character Camina Drummer. The first two episodes are divided into various segments, as players free-roam open space, search for salvage, and spend time aboard their ship, the Artemis, navigating crew relationships. However, The Expanse's decision-making stands as its boldest departure from the traditional Telltale formula, as its biggest narrative moments are determined by players' approach to exploration. While this format offers an enormous amount of freedom, players who approach The Expanse like a traditional Telltale series can find themselves locked out of crucial interactions.
The Expanse Delivers a Title in Which Decisions Truly Matter
The Expanse: A Telltale Series' most significant moments occur onboard the Artemis, with conversation providing the narrative's biggest story beats. However, unlike other Telltale game series, the depth of these conversations largely depends on how players approach their alone time. The Expanse's sandbox salvaging segments leave matters entirely up to the player, allowing them to explore open space and wreckage with no time limit or indication of how much salvage can be discovered. While The Expanse isn't the first title to promise that players’ decisions truly matter, these exploration segments see Telltale finally deliver.
The Expanse: A Telltale Series provides little guidance in its opening chapter, allowing players to discover the game's mechanics and salvaging system through first-hand experience. While they are given a destination marker and main objective, players are free to explore ships, rooms, and floating wreckage for hidden items. While some of these items serve little purpose, others prove to be crucial to the game's narrative. In this way, The Expanse leverages the player's every decision during exploration. Rather than force players to make two or three life-or-death decisions, in The Expanse, the spontaneous choice to explore one of its many optional rooms in real-time could be the difference between any crew member's life or death in a future episode.
The Expanse Episode 2 Highlights A Flaw In Its Approach to Freedom
The opening chapter of The Expanse: A Telltale Series - Episode 2 teaches players that nearly every piece of Episode 1's optional salvage is capable of playing a pivotal role. Drummer gets the option to gift another crew member with a cigar salvaged in Episode 1. This gift leads to Drummer bonding with her most oppositional crew member and learning a crucial codeword for future episodes. Later, players can use another completely optional piece of salvage to unearth hidden details on the ship's cook. If players then ignore their present objective and backtrack to this crew member's location, they can experience an obscure but hugely important moment of relationship-building.
Unfortunately, Telltale offers players no indication of exploration's true importance in The Expanse - Episode 1, leading many fans to miss Episode 2's biggest moments. It's apparent that a significant subset of players has stuck to the story in Episode 1 and Episode 2, an issue reflected by the Results page revealing that 66% of all players missed a single item that determines a certain character's survival. Going into Episode 3, the ramifications of these minor decisions could expand exponentially. Players interested in seeing their crew survive should thoroughly explore every nook and cranny from the opening moments of Episode 1.
The Expanse: A Telltale Series is available on PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S.
