Telltale is dead, long live Telltale. The Expanse is Telltale’s first genuine release (not counting Batman: Shadows Edition) after the studio closed and was relaunched when LCG Entertainment acquired it in 2019. The game continues the story-driven adventures the old Telltale was famous for.

The Expanse

In previous Telltale games, they went with Batman, Back to the Future, Borderlands and maybe most famously The Walking Dead series as the backdrop for their stories. This time they went with the Expanse. The series is based on a book by James S. A. Sorey and adapted for Syfy Network and later on for Amazon Prime. The series takes place in the future where the solar system is colonized and three factions are formed based on their location in the solar system. These three powers all have their inner power struggles as well as some differences with the other powers that lead to hostilities. With 6 seasons of material and a bunch of novels to draw inspiration from, Telltale decided not to mess with the current timeline and go for a prequel instead. So playing this game might actually be a good entry point for those interested in the series while still adding more to the canon of the series for those well-initiated in the matter.

Camina Drummer

In The Expanse, you’ll play Camina Drummer voiced by the actual actress from the series: Cara Gee. We follow Drummer long before the events of the TV series. At this moment she was still the Executive Officer of the spaceship Artemis. The main activities of this ship are to scavenge abandoned spaceships to survive. The Artemis is filled with totally new characters specially created for this game. The team collaborated with James S.A. Sorey to make sure they did the story justice – a move showing the care Telltale takes in delivering a fitting product. All the new characters are well written out and each has a distinct personality. The top-notch voice acting makes all the difference here in making this addition to the series believable.

Episodic

The Expanse is again an episodic release like most telltale games are. The major change this time around is the release schedule. Previously the episodes were released with relatively long periods between them. I always felt this broke the flow of the story too much and apparently Telltale shared my opinion. This time the episodes will only have two weeks between each release, making them feel more like an actual television series. This could mean by the time you read this review that several episodes (or maybe all 5 original intended episodes) are already out there for you to enjoy.

Free-roaming

The Expanse was developed with Deck Nine aboard, and it shows. Being narrative-driven you can’t really go wrong involving Deck Nine who are known for their narrative-driven games most notably the Life is Strange series. I felt The Expanse is written with a more subtle touch. The classic forks in the road feel much more natural this time around. The “story-changing” decisions to make in this game are not as obvious as before and therefore add much more flow. The classic “… will remember this” message indicating your reply might have caused an alteration to the story was often unexpected whereas in previous games they felt annoyingly obvious.

Another addition to the known gameplay is the ability to free-roam. Since the story is based around exploring and scavenging ships it felt natural to give Camina some freedom to explore. You can choose to fly around in your spacesuit or otherwise latch onto surfaces with your magnetic boots. Since gravity is different in outer space you can even walk on the walls and ceilings giving you a whole different perspective of the areas you’ll explore.

Conclusion

The Expanse gives you the option to play out a whole new prequel to the series while controlling the main character. Characters around you will survive or die because of your actions and ultimately shape the story. The classic Telltale gameplay is back with a more fluent story and free-roaming action added. This is not groundbreaking and I would’ve liked to be surprised a bit more but fans of the previous Telltale games will have the best experience a Telltale game ever offered.

7/10

tested on Xbox Series One S