Inspired by a television series

The Expanse: A Telltale Series is an episodic adventure game focused on narrative and action set in a space setting, as if we were part of a large crew on a spaceship.

Telltale Games debuted the first chapter of its game in July 2023, which talks about a mission to scrap a ship that brought unexpected discoveries to the Artemis crew. At the beginning of the gameplay, we can understand that we will have help from several astronauts, that each one was born in a different place on a different planet, and that they come together for a common interest: missions.

We are in control of Camina (played by Cara Gee, both in the series and in the game), better known as Drummer, who is an official agent of the spaceship "The Artemis". Drummer is a woman with a strong personality who is quite intelligent and perceptive, actively participating in missions while directing tasks to other crew members (thus commanding missions and being the boss from the very beginning).



With that, The Expanse: A Telltale Series is a game of choices based on dialogue, in which each alternative chosen is an advance in the story that is kept in the memory of each character.

For example, at one point, Drummer has to choose between losing a container and losing Rayen's leg (a crew member of his team who had stuck his leg in a door), and when I selected the answer that led to saving him, a message appeared in the corner of the screen that said "Rayen will remember this", and, later, when talking to the astronaut, the dialog and our relationship with him changed.

It's a very basic thing, but it leads to difficult decisions later on. In the beginning, everything is very quiet and the answers are simple since it works as a tutorial, but in the course of the gameplay, the situation becomes much more serious and tense, which will lead to different resolutions.



Zero Gravity

The game has a really different setting; I felt like I was on a ship all the time, like I was part of that project and had missions to complete. The fact that our character can fly, glide, and look for debris while being challenged by gravity and having some difficulties gives a very realistic tone to the work.

Therefore, it is a very easy game to play without much difficulty since it does not use many controls. The quick-time events are very easy to accomplish, and the tutorial is well explained. Absolutely everything in the game is indicated, and I think this is nice for those who are not used to games of this style.

Because it is a game of choices, sometimes they will have some very simple ones, just to give the context of the story. But, for the most part, the choices are more difficult and have a great impact on the narrative. At the beginning of the game, this comes to illustrate how it will be in the course of the gameplay and is quite comical for a start.



And at the same time, the game allows you to explore, based on active missions, within that space. In a way, it is something more limited, but still, the exploration is cool and has some very nice details, which perfectly match the theme of the game.

In addition, the game has elements that are bizarre, as in a moment when the crew members are extremely horrified by corpses. I would never have imagined that I would see something like that in this game, and when it was finally shown to me, I didn't understand. With that, a new mission came up, and all the events had an explanation.

Even so, these elements are shown in a light way because it is only visual; there is no terror involved or music that makes you tense, jumpscares, or mysteries. Even though I don't like games with these elements, it wasn't something that hindered my experience or made me not like the game so much; on the contrary, the way it was handled was quite different and even cool.



I really enjoyed playing The Expanse: A Telltale Series. I don't really have much contact with the theme of the game, but I found it interesting because they address so many scientific issues and even the mechanics present in the game.

I believe that the next episodes will be as interesting as the first and that the series has a lot of cool and interactive content.

Spaceship

The Expanse: A Telltale Series is well localized into Portuguese, has subtitles, and has good translations, but there is no dubbing (only in English). With that, we have six languages to choose from: English, Portuguese, German, Italian, French, and Spanish.

The video graphics are quite satisfactory but not perfect. Some animations leave something to be desired in fluidity, being a little stuck and stopped, not keeping pace with the story.

The story, as previously mentioned, is told linearly, objectively, and quickly, with cool facts about the characters that we only know through the dialogs. And, in this sense, the animations seem to be left behind in some moments when there are fewer details and illustrations, giving the impression of being less worked on than the rest of the components of the work.



In addition, I felt that the movement controls were a little different because I clicked sideways and my character didn't turn around; she just walked looking forward. I also did not see the movement of some elements, such as clothes and hair, which are points that I usually notice and value a lot in games and can bring a sense of action, especially because of the space theme.

Also about the controls, something that bothered me a lot was that I had to turn the mouse several times and scroll it several times through the mousepad simply to look at the scenery around and look for the points indicated on the screen.

With that, I can say that the only negative point of the title for me was the graphics. Therefore, I must praise the soundtrack and the sounds, which were really neat and refined. The songs are amazing and totally match the theme of the work, which fits perfectly with every moment.

Taking into account that the game asks for 6 GB of RAM, an Intel Core i5-2300 processor, and a GTX 750 Ti 2GB video card as minimum requirements, I played on a PC with 16GB of RAM, an Intel Core i5-9400F processor, and a GTX 1050 Ti video card. I did not suffer any bugs or glitches; the game ran perfectly.

The key to The Expanse: A Telltale Series for PC was made available by Telltale Games.