The Expanse: A Telltale Series Episodes 1-3 Review

ign.com:

I’m standing in front of an airlock door, staring at someone through the glass. I – which is to say, Camina Drummer – am on the right side of the door; the someone I’m watching is on the wrong one. I have a decision to make. This someone is begging me for their life. They’re a fool, greedy and bigoted and incompetent, and a danger to everyone else on board, especially me. But this someone is promising me useful information. They’re swearing they’ll make up for their sins. Do I press the button to let them back inside the ship, locking them in the brig and hoping they won’t find some new way to screw me down the line? Or do I press the other button, vent them into space, and live with the knowledge that I took a life in cold blood for the sake of convenience masquerading as justice?

I make my choice. I press the button. And the story goes on from there.

Not every choice in The Expanse: A Telltale Seriesis this dramatic, but even when it comes to small decisions, everything matters. At least, that’s what the game wants you to believe. Picking what to say to the members of my crew, opting for one solution over another, leaning into aggression or doing my best to play nice – all of it is recorded, and all of it has the potential to influence what happens next. Some of this is almost certainly an illusion – the “[CHARACTER] will remember this” notifications popping up without any clear indication of what that might mean – but the granularity is impressive, especially given how seamlessly each episode moves forward from point to point.

Even more importantly, I don’t know what decisions I make will matter, and what ones won’t. The hook of The Expanse is that it requires you to make choices in the moment with imperfect