The Council - Final Episode "Checkmate" Releases December 4th
Please don't post spoilers from any leaked The Council episodes.
The Council
Official Trailers
Episode 1
https://youtube.com/watch?v=AkVFsU0pDgg
Episode 2
https://youtube.com/watch?v=JZRSiOVN7fQ
Discuss The Council in this thread!
The Council is an episodic game like no other. Delivering a fresh new take on the Narrative Adventure, your choices and character growth truly matter. Make hard-hitting decisions, but also develop an array of skills to directly impact how the story unfolds. With permanent, long-lasting consequences, there is no going back. Plunge into a tale of intrigue and manipulation in the style of a classic murder mystery, living with a cast of alluring characters each hiding their own dark secrets. Trust no one while uncovering dire truths – no matter the cost to mind and body.
The Council episode 1 released digitally March 13th 2018 on PlayStation 4, Xbox One and PC.
Episode 2 released digitally March 15th for complete season owners and March 17th for single episode purchasers on PlayStation 4, Xbox One and PC.
Episode 3 released digitally July 24th for complete season owners and July 26th for single episode purchasers on PlayStation 4, Xbox One and PC.
Episode 4 releases digitally December 4th on PlayStation 4, Xbox One and PC.
Comments
Yeah i've heard i'm not sure if it's great but i like the concept.
Wow that looks like it belongs in the Dishonored universe. The artstyle and the character designs look so similar. Even the logo looks kinda like the Mark of the Outsider.
I like the way the game requires you to level up skills for certain dialogue options and in the trailer they mention how each episode has different endings leading to different scenario's each episode. Like you'll encounter different people and may miss stuff based on your choices:
If they release the first episode separately I might try it out. It seems neat if weirdly complex for what is still pretty much a story driven game.
After watching the trailer, this game has my interest. I really like the concept, the story, and how it's combining RPG with the Telltale style of gameplay. I will definitely be playing the first episode this Tuesday.
I was going to complain about the facial animations but honestly i don't really give a shit if the story is good.
Telltale’s facial animations aren’t superb either. I can live with it.
Fun fact: The development team apparently consists of veteran Ubisoft, Cyanide and Blizzard Developers.
Likely a day 1 but for me.
Well that depends on which game you're talking about i thought they did a good job with Batman : The Enemy Within.But i know it was bad in the first season.
Turn off subtitles and tell me from the bottom of your heart that the facial animations are good. Especially with examples like The Witcher 3, LA Noire and Assassin’s Creed Unity.
I’m not saying it’s bad, but it is nowhere near the level of mocap. The Council in this regard does better than Telltale, don’t you think so?
Telltale doesn't even use mocap, which makes their facial animations all the more impressive. Like mentioned their earlier work and series that are just hard to work with (Minecraft) have some questionable moments, but I would give the point towards telltale.I just love how Telltale can make simple eyebrow gestures all the more effective over someone's head wobbling back and forth as they talk. Its the teams first big game, so they got time to improve on it in future work, but more detailed doesn't necessarily mean better.
Yeah, Telltale's pretty good at facial animations. They can make the mouths move in a way that lines up (mostly) with the actual dialogue. I find that one of the best parts of their animation team.
(the original Life is Strange was pretty scary with its "nomnomnomnomnom" mouths, but they fixed it a bit in BTS.)
Always thought telltales were somewhat simplistic due to the art style. Their best animation I've seen this season is the really smooth animation where Harley moves up close to Bruce in the elevator.
Wow the first episode is really good I thought the rpg elements were great and there is a lot of stuff/secrets to be found by exploring. For instance I discovered something in my first playthrough I thought was minor but after replaying the episode I realised it was a major plot point and I'm in shock lol. I really recommend this game to anyone who likes Telltale episodic games.
Cool! Can you give a short review? What’s the secret though?
Sure, so the main gameplay consists of dialogue actions and exploration. At the beginning of the game you will have to choose a class your choice is basically selecting your career background and will give you a boost of starter skills. For instance choosing Diplomat gives you a level 1 political skill off the bat (plus a bunch of other diplomat related skills) instead of needing to level it up with points. You can only use your skills so many times in dialogue before you need to take a consumable to restore action points, I never felt under pressure as I always made sure to explore the environment for items. Sometimes choosing not to use a skill in dialogue can be the best option. There isn't really any combat from what I have seen conflict involves a battle of words. Your actions can result in cosmetic damage to your character if you are not careful. Most notably you can get a massive scar at the beginning of the game.
Each character you meet has strengths and weaknesses so some will be easy to persuade with politics while others will be immune to persuasion in certain fields. Some dialogue choices will be locked out and you may not be able to solve the meaning behind some objects without certain skills e.g. I wasn't able to pick locks cause I hadn't levelled up the skill. Also at the beginning of the game I wasn't able to read a letter in a foreign language however this was a direct result of me investing in a different skill/class. Throughout the game there are opportunities to observe the cast of characters to learn certain details opening dialogue options and other paths. During my play through I got into conflict with a Frenchman and handled the situation poorly, however afterwards at dinner I was able to observe he was not well versed in etiquette something I'll be able to use to my advantage in our next encounter due to my etiquette skill being level 2.
I found when playing the game exploring the environment for clues is major. Objects of interest will be highlighted by a small blue dot when you are close to them, these range from actual quest clues, books to increase skills and consumables. In one play through of Episode 1 you will not experience everything the game has to offer as there are multiple deviating path's throughout the episode which affects your relationship's with the characters and overall outcome for the episode. It can be easy to miss some major things but this is not necessarily a bad thing as at the end of each chapter in the episode the game will tell you what alternate path's you could of taken, what mistakes you made and what your successful actions were.
As for the story while playing I was really invested in the world and characters. The mix of real historical figures with fiction makes for a compelling opening to the episodic story. Also I've been getting some hints of mystical almost "love craftian" element in the game, the MC will have weird visions which may remain unclear or will reveal something major based on your choices/encounters. Graphic's/Art style are not amazing but it is clear to me the style they were going for was more Dishonored style characters rather than realistic. However saying that the environments are pretty beautiful.
Unlike Telltale games you are not jumping from cutscene to cutscene all the time nearly every area in the game is a hub that can be explored or revisited later on. Also as I mentioned earlier the main thing that sets it apart from Telltale is the skill's/rpg elements. I think overall the game is a nice mix of narrative adventure with rpg elements sprinkled in.
How do I do spoiler tags? I don't want to spoil it by telling people what I found lol.
Use >!
So early on in the game you have a vision of this woman named Emily being shot by your Mother which makes you suspicious of Emily who only just arrived on the island with you. After having a conversation with Emily I was able to convince her to open up to me and discovered she is on the island to find her missing twin. They both go by the same name cause it works to their advantage. So I put two and two together the vision I saw at the beginning of the game was the twin being shot! Likewise you are on the island to find your missing Mother. I would of had zero clue about the twin if I hadn't got Emily to trust me.
Can someone tell me how to buy it for the PS4. I've gone to the game's website but it won't let me buy it, the Playstation website says it's out now, but I can't find it when I search for it.
I can see it now at least on playstation store. Both episode one and season pass. Getting it in a few days I think.
So I don't know where you live, but it should be up by tomrrow at least if it's not there for you now.
I just searched for "Council" and it came up.
Well, this looks really quite interesting.
I haven't paid much attention to the game... until now. @gamingdevil800, your description of what the game holds is very insightful, and I am intrigued. Sounds very fun, and very deep.
I looked at the BTS trailer, and was really quite surprised. I thought this was a normal choice-based story game, but it's that plus RPG elements. Now, I'm not a big fan of RPG games, especially the big ones that focus on combat. I'm always paranoid that I'm either under-leveled or over-leveled or I'll just hit a brick wall in the form of a boss.
This looks like an interesting balance. It has the elements of skills and classes of RPG, but it's tied to a story so that makes it a bit easier... I guess.
Looks good, I'll have to pick it up at some point!
Edit: Heh. Odd pricing for an episodic game.
PSN (Cad) has Episode 1 for about 9.50$, and the Season Pass (episode 2-5) for 33.50$
But, You can save a small amount by getting the full bundle all at once for 40$. Ok then.
Still might wait a bit on this, the first episode looks promising, but I don't know how it'll unravel from there.
p.s.: YouTube comments just can't appreciate "different art-styles" these days. Ugh.
Just wanted to address what you said about things unravelling from episode 1... Well I have two play through's and I can tell you the ending for each one is drastically different. I had a favourable outcome in my first play through but in my second one it is not looking good for me haha.
Just did it, it finally came up. Like I said, I did it earlier today and it wasn't showing up, I guess they were just late in posting it.
Forgot to say... You should be able to buy the complete season 1 to 5 for a different price. Check the PSN store website. I noticed that episode 1 and the rest could be bought separately for some odd reason. Like I bought 1 to 5 for £24.99 not sure what that converts to in Canadian Dollars though.
Just played through the first episode. That was a good roughly 3 hours of plot setup and character introductions. If you're expecting an intense thrill ride you will be very disappointed, but the characters and writing are very well done, which had me worried due to its time setting and location. The main character isn't a snob-ish or wimpy english man but just some dude who happens to be gifted in specific traits searching for his mother at a manor. There's some interesting supernatural elements that do come into play and I hope are fully explored, specifically with one character I got very close with at the end.
As for the gameplay I was very worried of feeling overwhelmed and discouraged by locked branching due to specific skills, traits and item management with an HP bar of sorts, but it worked out well and found it really fascinating (I do miss QTE though). Overall I was pleasantly surprise and quite enjoyed the premiere. For 7 bucks you can't go wrong, although I'm not sure I see how massive these choices are supposed to be but all in due time. Solid overall - 4/5
After Chapter 1, there were 3 columns showing what you had done and what else you could have done instead. I succeeded in the first column, but failed he second completely. The alternative choices (third column), mentioned that I could have spoke to Holm instead and that so missed an unexpected encounter.
Mind shedding some light on this? Does the alternate choices have anything to do with me failing the second column? Also, I missed 2 opportunities, could that be it? You obviously have more experience here since you have 2 save games, I thought you could help me out a bit.
P.S. Don’t spoil anything after Chapter 1.
Alternate choices are mostly things you can't do cause you chose to do something else instead. There are some alternate choices too which can be done but can be missed out on like e.g. talk to a certain person to find out a specific detail. Not sure what you failed but the second column aka failures is opportunities you could of done but missed or ways you messed up. Alternate choices are different from failures I believe. Even though the game says failures I don't think you'll ever get a perfect run without them appearing at least once tbh.
Well one of the endings is a very intense set up for the next episode haha but I'm guessing you didn't get it lol.
I did if you mean not the romantic one. I just didn't find it as intense as they wanted it to be.
I'm guessing she pulls a knife on you if you refuse to drink her "concoction" or don't let her escape.
I drank with her and told her to stay. Passed out and woke up with her dead on the floor. Then another guest walks in and gasps so it looks like to them that I have killed her lol.
Yeah okay that's a bit more shocking than what I saw. Haha
What did you get there must be more than two endings then haha?
I drank with her and told her to make a run for it. I passed out and she ran off with a knife in her hand.
Wow well episode 2 is hopefully going to be very good in terms of starting out differently! I might do a 3rd play through tbh to get that alternate path.
@gamingdevil800
Haha that’s strange. My failure column is actually empty. That means I got the actual ‘best outcome’ for the Chapter, I’m guessing? I did not realise it was a overview of the chapter, I thought it was for sequences of events. I thought I completely failed one, haha. Thanks for clearing that up.
On that note, I DID miss 3 opportunities, but I’m gonna take a guess that those are the minor ones? (The ones where you require a skill).
Well it is possible you got the "best outcome" but those alternate paths may have had more beneficial information but we won't know till episode 2 and beyond. I had the failure column empty too for one or two chapters as well. I noticed that sometimes an "actual failure" in terms of the story may not necessarily be a failure like I failed to defend someone but got valuable information by doing so.
When you say opportunities you mean the QTE moments when you observe people? Yeah those are pretty minor they are just for identifying character strengths/weaknesses.
Well yeah. Those were the opportunities I’m talking about.
Although it is fairly interesting that if Elizabeth gets hurt, it is considered a failure. The fact that you didn’t get her talisman too, even though you previously didn’t know about it’s importance (if you didn’t follow Holm). Also, the talisman also far does not teach you anything important.
Also, do you know if pissing off George Washington is considered a failure?
Lastly, as you mentioned before, how exactly did you get Emily to open up to you about her twin? Gonna do it on the second playthrough.
I’m really loving how this game is being handled.
Well you can save Elizabeth but George Washington is a bit annoyed that he didn't have enough time to find everything but he still gets some information. Can't remember if it came up as a failure though. To get Emily to open up I just made sure that the Psychological skill was at level 2 (Brain symbol) it's her weakness in conversations. It's pretty vital to help win the confrontation in the secret room.
I agree though I'm really liking this game so far. Has sort of a Telltale feel with more added depth. I appreciate the way the game gives you the opportunity to look around each area and it looks like more of the manor will open up in the next episodes.