The Expanse: A Telltale Series feels like another season of the show

It’s been over a year since the TV series The ExpanseIt ended up with a compressed season. While it’s a miracle it managed to cover six of the nine Expansion novels during its run on SyFy and later Amazon Prime, it’s hard not to feel like we left that universe too soon. The show’s weekly sci-fi allegory and world-building are unlike anything else on television. Thankfully, Telltale Series: The Expanse It fills the void in a very admirable way. I’ve played the first three episodes of a planned five, and while it may not contain the lovable cast of the Rocinante, just about everything else that made the show so compelling has returned.

First and foremost, we have Cara Gee, who reprises her memorable role as Camina Drummer and acts as the game’s main character. Giving players control of such a fiercely charismatic person goes a long way to making the game’s world engrossing from the get-go, but your crew of misfit scrappers certainly aren’t weak links. There’s the curmudgeonly pilot, the hotshot (former) Marine, and an impeccably professional doctor who must be hiding What are you waiting for?It is a bit of a mess to serve with such ragtag gang.

In the first two episodes, the writing and performance are just as good as the series. The focus is more on the intimate characters than the solar system politics. For better or worse, sometimes you forget you’re playing a video game and not watching an animated Expansion series.

Drummer propels herself in zero-g toward the husk of a broken ship in The Expanse: A Telltale Series

Not only do the level designers imbue the environments with an appropriate amount of “lived-in-ness” — much of what they’ve created can be explored in zero gravity. The implementation here is shockingly intuitive, allowing you to attach your “grav boots” not only to the floor, but walls and ceilings as well. As a scrapper, you’ll be able to easily launch off of and explore the wreckage of ships floating above Jupiter, searching for spare parts, fuel, and maybe something extra for your crewmates. You can find out more about the game here. Expansion fans in particular, it’s quite the treat flying around the carcasses of MCRN and U.N. Navy vessels, fully realized in all their vastness.

Everything looks and feels great, but it’s hard not to feel like Telltale’s style is something of a throwback these days. Despite me not having not played one of the studio’s games since the original Walking Dead in 2013 (and certainly not since the company’s “revival” in 2019), the dialogue system felt instantly familiar. After I learned about my crew and made choices, I began to think more deeply about the impact of certain responses on my future options. I was nostalgic to compare my decisions with other players’ choices.

A quick-time decision forces the player to choose between losing a leg or losing access to something called “ The Vault” in The Expanse: A Telltale Series

It’s simplistic, but in some ways that makes the game feel more approachable than many narrative games today. Sometimes I want a game to hook me in more complicated, nuanced ways, but sometimes I just want a big flashing window to tell me if I’m about to make an important decision. It’s important to have a range of accessibility features to help make the game easy for you to enjoy. I particularly liked the quick-time sequences warning that paused the entire game.

What remains to be seen is how the game’s meaningful choices will affect the story in later episodes. The plot of Episode 1: “Archer’s Paradox” doesn’t stray far from typical Expansion fare, but a revelation in a later episode seems poised to explore more of the show’s deeper themes of exploitation, injustice, and inequality.

I may not know yet where it’s headed, but it’s so satisfying to be enjoying The Expanse again.

Telltale Series: The Expanse Episode 1: “Archer’s Paradox” The game will be available on the 27th of July on PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5 and Windows PC. Xbox One and Xbox Series X are also included. Double Fine Productions provided a code for a prerelease version of the game to be reviewed. Vox Media also has affiliate relationships. Vox Media can earn affiliate commissions, but this does not affect editorial content. This is where you can find additional information about Polygon’s ethics policy here.