I have to agree with LoneWalker59.
I'm prolly part of the majority, who pretty much grew up with TWD, 400 days, Michonne, as well as WAU & Batman.
It's no secret going off my pfp that WAU is my favorite game from Telltale. Though it would be a close match with TWD.
I knew Telltale was going trough some changes when i played the latest TWD season, which was...weak to say the least. And then that whole thing happened with the company going under, it wasn't pretty. I'm very happy they're back.
But The Expanse was hyped up as THE NEXT Telltale IP, almost making me feel guilty for not loving the game. But the truth is, i don't. Maybe i'm a fool for expecting the same kick i got from these games back in 2013.
I'm afraid, WAUBros. Is our game gonna get the same treatment? I hope not. And i am happy knowing there are some who enjoy The Expanse.
Well this was an episode still with an underwhelming 1-hour length, but an interesting ending and somewhat satisfying cliffhanger!
The very trippy fly-through the mines was cool set-piece wise as it got more and more twisted and Camina got more emotionally unstable. (My condolences to @lupinb0y's stomach)
Good to get a small bit more details on Dawes and Camina when they once worked together, but I still feel like I'm missing something about who he was and what Camina did for him to make her so valuable. (Is this elaborated on in the show? I thought this game was already a prequel, we need another one now too?)
The ending of the episode actually kept surprising me. I thought it would end once the pirates showed up, or after Camina gets knocked out once onboard, or just before/after arriving at the bridge, but there was a very cool little face-to-face encounter with Toussaint finally and then even continuing on to get back on the Artemis.
Finally, an episode ending that I feel was deserved. (Ep3 was pretty good too)
-- Also it took up until Tor said "She" at the end of the episode to realise Toussaint was a woman. 😅 I thought she was a beefy chested man at first, dunno why I couldn't place it.
The lack of any major choices at all is very surprising. I would've thought there'd be some "Accept Offer/Reject Offer" regarding the pirates, and you'd either be with them on the Artemis next episode, or trying to get back with Julie freed.
In the opening of this Ep, was Maya's skin all black for everyone? Was that a bug and her normal appearance later how it's intended?
Because idk that was weird. I figured "space frostbite" would do that to ya... but maybe that was unintentional?
(Also I checked every nook and cranny like a dummy even though there were no scavenge pieces to be found.
But I still missed 3 whole data logs in the twisty tunnels bit? Where the heck were they, that was a pretty linear sequence with easy-to-see interactables?)
Even if they did a proper flashback it still suffers from being irrelevant. Drummer has a bad past and that's all we really need to know. Her past has practically nothing to do with this story, so who cares. Its not like in Wolf we need a flashback of Bigby dealing with his regrets of eating people or whatever.
Oof, yeah, I agree too much with you there, Poogs.
Both on this still being a slightly confusing "introduction" to the series and having too cryptic past.
Like, the use of a cryptic past to define a character is cool, but you either need to go all in to show their original trauma so it can properly emotionally resonate, or hint at it enough so the reader can form their own grisly interpretation on it. But this series isn't really even doing the latter. I'm just a little too confused on it all.
Even so, the point of using a traumatic event is so that you can see how the character grows from it. How they'll encounter this problem again and what they do to move past it, be stronger in the face of it.
(Or in the case of something like The Last of Us, in a dark twist, fall back into that traumatic pattern to save/avenge a loved one)
And in the case of Deck Nine's Expanse, we haven't gotten enough interaction with the crew to really resonate with Camina's whole "I'm not giving up on them" thing, at least in my opinion so far..
Y'know I'm pretty disappointed we haven't had any major choices give you a sizeable different scene like other games have in the past. There's the Sleep With Maya one, but.. that was really short.
No "Cliffhanger choice that changes the opening of the next episode". Or a classic "Go Help Person A vs Person B" that both ultimately end up being completed, but you at least get to experience one of two bonus story events.
Was pretty disappointed that episode 1 has some pretty classic Telltale choices like killing Cox or cutting off a leg but everything after that has been really lacking and sadly both those choices that were more classically Telltale have not been shown to do much at all.
Also has collecting salvage done literally anything? Outside the specific objects is there even anything worth finding random thing to collect?
Y'know I'm pretty disappointed we haven't had any major choices give you a sizeable different scene like other games have in the past. There… more's the Sleep With Maya one, but.. that was really short.
No "Cliffhanger choice that changes the opening of the next episode". Or a classic "Go Help Person A vs Person B" that both ultimately end up being completed, but you at least get to experience one of two bonus story events.
Tbh everything hinges on episode 5 whether the choices we made end up as insignificant as they seem now. The most impressive so far in the choice department was the ending to episode 3 and even that was nothing to write home about.
Also I agree with Chicken regarding the pirates choice. Once again I thought they were setting up a classic major choice between going along with Julie's plan and risk not being able to catch up to your ship OR just doing what the pirates say and once again I ended up being disappointed.
The generic salvage was probably there just for the achievement, because I don't really see how can they be relevant at this point. Would be cool if they could have been used when the pirates were chasing us for example, but alas...
Was pretty disappointed that episode 1 has some pretty classic Telltale choices like killing Cox or cutting off a leg but everything after t… morehat has been really lacking and sadly both those choices that were more classically Telltale have not been shown to do much at all.
Also has collecting salvage done literally anything? Outside the specific objects is there even anything worth finding random thing to collect?
Episode 5 hasn't showed up in my licenses yet though.
In other news, with Episode 5 coming out now, Destructoid seems to have given us the first full review of the whole series.
They say it's... meh to fine. Lots of new open exploration and optional salvage to find is good. But Salvage feels unimportant, and the choices once again have very little impact on anything that happens to make it feel worthwhile. shrug https://www.destructoid.com/reviews/review-the-expanse-a-telltale-series/
Unsurprisingly the finale is under an hour. Telltale finales tend to be shorter so if its at least exciting and well pac-okay I'm gonna stop myself there.
Today's the early access day.
Episode 5 hasn't showed up in my licenses yet though.
In other news, with Episode 5 coming out now, Dest… moreructoid seems to have given us the first full review of the whole series.
They say it's... meh to fine. Lots of new open exploration and optional salvage to find is good. But Salvage feels unimportant, and the choices once again have very little impact on anything that happens to make it feel worthwhile. shrug
https://www.destructoid.com/reviews/review-the-expanse-a-telltale-series/
Pretty sure this was the shortest episode of any other Telltale episode. Finished in exactly half an hour. Really just more of the same.
I am assuming this episode probably has the most differences but I have not been able to see all of them yet. However I feel like Expanse focuses way too much on choices that don't have a predictable outcome. This is not to say a game like this shouldn't have choices with consciences you may not expect but now the game is over and pretty much every choice and consequence feels like you can never make an educated guess on what it may lead to. Trust me I don't want choices where there is no risk of unpredictability but Expanse does way too much of it.
It appears Khan will die if you fail helping Virgil which happened to me. But how she dies is kind of dumb. She first of all doesn't not act like she is moments from death before she dies and if Virgil comes to help, just as much time has passed where she does die. Never a fan of moments like this because suddenly Virgil's simple appearance is what saves her. It has nothing to do with what wound she has or how long it has been.
This then also leads to a pretty major problem of not really caring at all about what happens to the characters. Last time we talked to Khan was in episode 2. Now we are at her possible death scene. I have no idea how they could have expected to get anyone invested in these characters when they give them no time to shine outside 1 very short moment 3 episodes ago.
I also feel like Drummer works poorly as a playable character at least with the story they wanted to tell. Drummer will simply take a stance in a situation for the sake of what her character is. She doesn't work well for letting the player make choices because clearly they want Drummer to act a certain way no matter what so there are plenty of choices that are not choices. Obviously these games need to steer the player a certain way but far too many times do we focus on Drummer as the character that she already is and it makes her feel super lacking in a game about making choices. And again the game fails pretty bad for people who have no experience with Expanse before playing unlike pretty much every other Telltale game where they take the time to make sure people new to the world understand.
As a whole I think the game progressively fell apart each episode. I feel like episode 1 was easily the best. Then episode 2 felt like a retread with no choices. Episode 3 had good atmosphere but again was way too much of the same until the ending. Then episode 4 felt like pure filler and episode 5 wanted to wrap up before it even got started. Characters was probably the most disappointing part of the game. Probably one of the loneliest Telltale games with how little you interact with anyone. Action always felt really slow and always lacked weight. Then issues of how short the game is and all the release problems. And I know it is old by now but they should have released it all at once.
So I guess that's really it. Not exactly a big splash for Telltale's comeback. Can't think of much else to say other than I feel like Expanse was very lacking.
34 mins....It took me 34 mins to finish episode 5. They can't get away with this again. This is beyond embarrassing. That aside...the episode was fine. The pacing was better than most episodes but it was so short that it felt like it ended after a few scenes. More combat sequences than any episode so far and they were okay. Making a lot of big decisions in the last episode makes a lot of the previous choices feel pointless, which I don't love. Overall. Expanse is fine. Its very 6/10, which is so unfortunate for a telltale game. There was no real highs but no massive lows either. I guess there's the DLC episode still but watch that be 15 mins long.
Final death count was Kahn, Arlen, and Maya. The issue is that outside of Maya. I uh really didn't care to see Kahn die. Kind of annoyed how I'm pretty sure it involves not finding her stupid cigar but whatever. I think Arlen dies no matter what and I still don't know why Maya dies.
Yeah I don't understand the story style of Expanse at all. It has no highs but it also has no lows. It really lacks having an actual plot. Like it never does anything I outright disliked but it also never does anything great or memorable. Even the worst Telltale writing had some kind of season arc while this really has nothing. The storytelling just comes off really amateur with how much it seems to forget to be telling a story (poor pacing, lack of interesting characters, overarching narrative has no grandeur, antagonist are underdeveloped, no/minimal character arcs, repetition) it feels like nothing happens. So as a whole the story feels like a lot of words that say nothing.
34 mins....It took me 34 mins to finish episode 5. They can't get away with this again. This is beyond embarrassing. That aside...the episod… moree was fine. The pacing was better than most episodes but it was so short that it felt like it ended after a few scenes. More combat sequences than any episode so far and they were okay. Making a lot of big decisions in the last episode makes a lot of the previous choices feel pointless, which I don't love. Overall. Expanse is fine. Its very 6/10, which is so unfortunate for a telltale game. There was no real highs but no massive lows either. I guess there's the DLC episode still but watch that be 15 mins long.
(Spoiler)
The best part of the episode truly was when Cox officially lost his Nick status and did something.
Also i liked how he appeared at the end you can see him in the background upstairs when they're all talking and that's not even mentioned whatsoever him and Drummer are cool again i guess lmao
You pretty much said it all i feel like one of the biggest issues of this game for me was i felt like the pacing of the story was generally awful there were pretty good moments but they were buried underneath filler and/or because the episodes were too short.
It's not even like the game is awful but what could've been a pretty good game is hindered by all these problems the QTE's being there just for the sake of it for example and being so slow (they even introduced a new type of QTE where you have to smash the same button for the last fight that they never used before in the whole game).
The action scenes lacking any weight like you said and feeling like i'm seeing a bunch of actors doing mocap,not having enough time with the crew but when we did it was really good like having a scene with one of your crewmates if you gave them a gift that you found when exploring.
I've seen some people complain about that but to me it's stuff like that that makes these interactions meaningful and earned and makes these games well actual games because not everyone is going to get that same scene but unfortunately it doesn't happen very often because you don't spend enough time with the crew.
I could probably say more but yeah it's too bad i still overall enjoyed it but it wasn't the "return" of Telltale games to me here's hoping Wolf 2 will be the one.
Pretty sure this was the shortest episode of any other Telltale episode. Finished in exactly half an hour. Really just more of the same.
… moreI am assuming this episode probably has the most differences but I have not been able to see all of them yet. However I feel like Expanse focuses way too much on choices that don't have a predictable outcome. This is not to say a game like this shouldn't have choices with consciences you may not expect but now the game is over and pretty much every choice and consequence feels like you can never make an educated guess on what it may lead to. Trust me I don't want choices where there is no risk of unpredictability but Expanse does way too much of it.
(Spoiler)
So I guess that's really it. Not exactly a big splash for Telltale's comeback. Can't think of much else to say other than I feel like Expanse was very lacking.
Finished the episode in about 35 minutes, officially making it the shortest Telltale episode thus far, though the download was 8GB so seems like there might be a good amount of variation. The final choices screen also made it seem like certain things could go in pretty different ways but who knows. I enjoyed the episode more so than episode 4, decent action, the most choices in the entire series, but the incredibly short length is pretty disheartening, especially with how fast paced the episode was. As a series, I wouldn't go anywhere near as far as calling this the weakest Telltale game, there are definitely weaker. But I would put it somewhere in the middle. Visually it looks pretty good, the animation, especially facial animation, is improved, I greatly enjoyed the exploration despite the suffering it caused me, and honestly the game did interest me in the television series. I especially loved the worldbuilding and how near dystopian the state of the galaxy is.
However it definitely has its issues. Outside of Maya, you don't get to really spend anytime with the other crewmates, especially Rayen and Arlen who are the only characters you don't get any one on one with. It also often relies on the player having watched the tv show, especially with episode 4. While the rest of the animation is pretty great, the action looks and feels sluggish, and this is likely due to Deck Nine's inexperience with action sequence. It also has pretty wild pacing issues. To me, episodes 1 and 3 are tied for the best. Episode 1 feels more like classic modern Telltale, but I was absolutely enthralled by the worldbuilding in episode 3 and had fun with the relationship between Drummer and Maya. I would definitely call episode 4 the weakest of the bunch. The penultimate curse continues! It also definitely feels like the game was originally going to be released all at once, but a decision somewhere further in development caused them to split the episodes up.
I would still like to see Telltale work with third party studios. Heck, I wouldn't even mind if Telltale worked with Deck Nine again, but maybe with a project that features less action lol.
The weak action honestly killed me at times. Watching Arlen take like a million of these weak ass punches from Drummer as he does nothing to defend himself and the second she stops he isn't even meant to be passed out he just walks it off like "Owie!!!" It is such weird fight choreography.
And exactly. Moments like Khan and Virgil's scenes in episode 2 were probably the best parts of the whole game. I seriously do not understand at all how anyone working on this game thought people would care about your crew when you give them nothing. Sure those 2 moments are good but did they really expect our single conversation with these characters to then go 2 episodes never interacting with them to carry our investment? It is like they gave them a sprinkle of development and decided that was enough. Maya is the only other character who seems to get the most attention but she is ironically a very flat character who might as well just wear a name tag that says "LOVE INTEREST" because she really has nothing else going on.
You pretty much said it all i feel like one of the biggest issues of this game for me was i felt like the pacing of the story was generally … moreawful there were pretty good moments but they were buried underneath filler and/or because the episodes were too short.
It's not even like the game is awful but what could've been a pretty good game is hindered by all these problems the QTE's being there just for the sake of it for example and being so slow (they even introduced a new type of QTE where you have to smash the same button for the last fight that they never used before in the whole game).
The action scenes lacking any weight like you said and feeling like i'm seeing a bunch of actors doing mocap,not having enough time with the crew but when we did it was really good like having a scene with one of your crewmates if you gave them a gift that you found when exploring.
I've seen some people complain about that but to me it's stuff like th… [view original content]
Pretty weak for Telltale standards tbh, understandable ig since it's more of a Deck Nine game but still, at least their other IPs that spawned from works I wasn't familiar with managed to get me invested in the world and characters (GoT, Borderlands, Guardians)
Drummer just isn't a good playable character, she has a whole established backstory the game never bothers to explain (and I didn't care enough to look it up) and you don't really have that much agency over her, also didn't care about her whole making the Belt a better place thing because well, the game gave me no reason to care about it
Choices were lacking (come on, 2 dialogue options instead of 4?) and their consequences elusive, side characters were as one dimensional as they can get and the story's length is ridiculous for its price (and the story had nothing novel to offer as far as SF goes, honestly.), I'd say this is a 3/10 overall, will probably forget about it in under 6 months
Erik_Telltale dev/communications person replying to plenty of comments on reddit about the whole series -both good and bad criticism with ❤️
Poor guy, but glad to see they're being proactive in reading as many fan comments as possible.
This may have been too nosy, but I checked the credits and couldn't find an Erik who works at telltale itself, but there is one Erik who works as Global Marketing at Splash Damage Ltd.
(Which is a weird company to partner with for this.. they make a lot of multiplayer titles, but mostly being used here for more QA and Marketing?)
Tbh, they were trying way too hard for us to like Maya. Ironically, that made me dislike her more out of spite lol. I noticed that with the other crew members, there was at least one mean/stern dialogue option but with Maya, Drummer was always all lovey dovey 😍.
Btw, what happens to Maya if she's alive? Do they even explain how she goes from supposedly one of the most important persons in Drummer's life to someone who's never mentioned later on? (not a question aimed solely at you, just didn't want to make a new post lol)
The weak action honestly killed me at times. Watching Arlen take like a million of these weak ass punches from Drummer as he does nothing to… more defend himself and the second she stops he isn't even meant to be passed out he just walks it off like "Owie!!!" It is such weird fight choreography.
And exactly. Moments like Khan and Virgil's scenes in episode 2 were probably the best parts of the whole game. I seriously do not understand at all how anyone working on this game thought people would care about your crew when you give them nothing. Sure those 2 moments are good but did they really expect our single conversation with these characters to then go 2 episodes never interacting with them to carry our investment? It is like they gave them a sprinkle of development and decided that was enough. Maya is the only other character who seems to get the most attention but she is ironically a very flat character who might as well just wear a name tag that says "LOVE INTEREST" because she really has nothing else going on.
Tbh, they were trying way too hard for us to like Maya. Ironically, that made me dislike her more out of spite lol. I noticed that with the … moreother crew members, there was at least one mean/stern dialogue option but with Maya, Drummer was always all lovey dovey 😍.
Btw, what happens to Maya if she's alive? Do they even explain how she goes from supposedly one of the most important persons in Drummer's life to someone who's never mentioned later on? (not a question aimed solely at you, just didn't want to make a new post lol)
Maybe a mod should make a general feedback thread for Telltale in the general chat now that Expanse has wrapped and we can give some overall feedback? Not sure if Telltale actually checks here but maybe we could have a spot to voice some suggestions.
Erik_Telltale dev/communications person replying to plenty of comments on reddit about the whole series -both good and bad criticism with ❤️… more
Poor guy, but glad to see they're being proactive in reading as many fan comments as possible.
https://reddit.com/r/telltale/s/XlfC7JozDZ
This may have been too nosy, but I checked the credits and couldn't find an Erik who works at telltale itself, but there is one Erik who works as Global Marketing at Splash Damage Ltd.
(Which is a weird company to partner with for this.. they make a lot of multiplayer titles, but mostly being used here for more QA and Marketing?)
I don't know whether to laugh or to cry at this episode's length.
Wow.
Well.
Starting off with the pros:
It was good to finally have an episode that feels like it honors the classic Telltale Choice Style.
Major decisions finally had a felt impact on how scenes and character interactions played out.
I killed Rayen (I decided on going full Scorched Earth evil since with Maya dead I can't get a 100% crew saved award on this file) and characters ended up being freaked out about Drummer. (Turns out there was a lot different in scenes because of this according to the choices screen cool)
The way they used zero-gravity as a tactical element to sneak in the cargo bay (and in general on the Artemis in this episode) was cool.
I hadn't realised that everyone always had their Mag Boots on, and things could still float freely if dead/not grounded on the ship.
When the Artemis blew up, Drummer looked upon the explosion, and the camera started to pan up to the stars as the music swelled -- I thought that was the ending right there and then. That would have been disappointing, thankfully it wasn't.
Speaks to how abrupt the other endings have conditioned me to expect tho...
The ending-ending was... uh okay? IDK who the guy on the radio was (but I looked him up and he played Tyreese on TWD Show, so cool) and it was a little too vaguely poking at what I assume is a show-reference.
"We last met while you had a gun pointed at me" Uh did we?? Not as me the player, we didn't.
Anyway, overall, this episode was actually a good one in terms of choices but goddamn that was still terribly short and unsatisfying overall.
See y'all in October/November for the bonus episode I guess??
I wish I ended up liking this game but I felt nothing in the end. It's kinda crazy that minecraft story mode did a much better job at making us feel for characters and actually telling a story. This game was just a series of events, and then the credits hit. Let's hope Wolf doesn't end up like this game.
Comments
I have to agree with LoneWalker59.
I'm prolly part of the majority, who pretty much grew up with TWD, 400 days, Michonne, as well as WAU & Batman.
It's no secret going off my pfp that WAU is my favorite game from Telltale. Though it would be a close match with TWD.
I knew Telltale was going trough some changes when i played the latest TWD season, which was...weak to say the least. And then that whole thing happened with the company going under, it wasn't pretty. I'm very happy they're back.
But The Expanse was hyped up as THE NEXT Telltale IP, almost making me feel guilty for not loving the game. But the truth is, i don't. Maybe i'm a fool for expecting the same kick i got from these games back in 2013.
I'm afraid, WAUBros. Is our game gonna get the same treatment? I hope not. And i am happy knowing there are some who enjoy The Expanse.
Well this was an episode still with an underwhelming 1-hour length, but an interesting ending and somewhat satisfying cliffhanger!
The very trippy fly-through the mines was cool set-piece wise as it got more and more twisted and Camina got more emotionally unstable. (My condolences to @lupinb0y's stomach)
Good to get a small bit more details on Dawes and Camina when they once worked together, but I still feel like I'm missing something about who he was and what Camina did for him to make her so valuable. (Is this elaborated on in the show? I thought this game was already a prequel, we need another one now too?)
The ending of the episode actually kept surprising me. I thought it would end once the pirates showed up, or after Camina gets knocked out once onboard, or just before/after arriving at the bridge, but there was a very cool little face-to-face encounter with Toussaint finally and then even continuing on to get back on the Artemis.
Finally, an episode ending that I feel was deserved. (Ep3 was pretty good too)
-- Also it took up until Tor said "She" at the end of the episode to realise Toussaint was a woman. 😅 I thought she was a beefy chested man at first, dunno why I couldn't place it.
The lack of any major choices at all is very surprising. I would've thought there'd be some "Accept Offer/Reject Offer" regarding the pirates, and you'd either be with them on the Artemis next episode, or trying to get back with Julie freed.
In the opening of this Ep, was Maya's skin all black for everyone? Was that a bug and her normal appearance later how it's intended?
Because idk that was weird. I figured "space frostbite" would do that to ya... but maybe that was unintentional?
(Also I checked every nook and cranny like a dummy even though there were no scavenge pieces to be found.
But I still missed 3 whole data logs in the twisty tunnels bit? Where the heck were they, that was a pretty linear sequence with easy-to-see interactables?)
Oof, yeah, I agree too much with you there, Poogs.
Both on this still being a slightly confusing "introduction" to the series and having too cryptic past.
Like, the use of a cryptic past to define a character is cool, but you either need to go all in to show their original trauma so it can properly emotionally resonate, or hint at it enough so the reader can form their own grisly interpretation on it. But this series isn't really even doing the latter. I'm just a little too confused on it all.
Even so, the point of using a traumatic event is so that you can see how the character grows from it. How they'll encounter this problem again and what they do to move past it, be stronger in the face of it.
(Or in the case of something like The Last of Us, in a dark twist, fall back into that traumatic pattern to save/avenge a loved one)
And in the case of Deck Nine's Expanse, we haven't gotten enough interaction with the crew to really resonate with Camina's whole "I'm not giving up on them" thing, at least in my opinion so far..
Y'know I'm pretty disappointed we haven't had any major choices give you a sizeable different scene like other games have in the past. There's the Sleep With Maya one, but.. that was really short.
No "Cliffhanger choice that changes the opening of the next episode". Or a classic "Go Help Person A vs Person B" that both ultimately end up being completed, but you at least get to experience one of two bonus story events.
Was pretty disappointed that episode 1 has some pretty classic Telltale choices like killing Cox or cutting off a leg but everything after that has been really lacking and sadly both those choices that were more classically Telltale have not been shown to do much at all.
Also has collecting salvage done literally anything? Outside the specific objects is there even anything worth finding random thing to collect?
Tbh everything hinges on episode 5 whether the choices we made end up as insignificant as they seem now. The most impressive so far in the choice department was the ending to episode 3 and even that was nothing to write home about.
Also I agree with Chicken regarding the pirates choice. Once again I thought they were setting up a classic major choice between going along with Julie's plan and risk not being able to catch up to your ship OR just doing what the pirates say and once again I ended up being disappointed.
The generic salvage was probably there just for the achievement, because I don't really see how can they be relevant at this point. Would be cool if they could have been used when the pirates were chasing us for example, but alas...
Another of them behind the belt videos.
https://x.com/Wario64/status/1703926802891026746?s=20 The game is already on a deep sale. :^)
CAN I GET AN R.I.P. BANANG UP IN HERE? 🙏
Well technically, I'm pretty sure it didn't appear in Game of Thrones, so this doesn't necessarily mean the end of the gag
also, it's technically Deck Nine's game, so perhaps there's some jurisdiction issues there
Hmmm... is episode 5 supposed to be out now?
Today's the early access day.
Episode 5 hasn't showed up in my licenses yet though.
In other news, with Episode 5 coming out now, Destructoid seems to have given us the first full review of the whole series.
They say it's... meh to fine. Lots of new open exploration and optional salvage to find is good. But Salvage feels unimportant, and the choices once again have very little impact on anything that happens to make it feel worthwhile. shrug
https://www.destructoid.com/reviews/review-the-expanse-a-telltale-series/
Unsurprisingly the finale is under an hour. Telltale finales tend to be shorter so if its at least exciting and well pac-okay I'm gonna stop myself there.
Hasn't shown up for me either, so that's frustrating.
Does nothing the whole game
Hits Arlen with a bottle
Leaves immediately after
Pretty sure this was the shortest episode of any other Telltale episode. Finished in exactly half an hour. Really just more of the same.
I am assuming this episode probably has the most differences but I have not been able to see all of them yet. However I feel like Expanse focuses way too much on choices that don't have a predictable outcome. This is not to say a game like this shouldn't have choices with consciences you may not expect but now the game is over and pretty much every choice and consequence feels like you can never make an educated guess on what it may lead to. Trust me I don't want choices where there is no risk of unpredictability but Expanse does way too much of it.
It appears Khan will die if you fail helping Virgil which happened to me. But how she dies is kind of dumb. She first of all doesn't not act like she is moments from death before she dies and if Virgil comes to help, just as much time has passed where she does die. Never a fan of moments like this because suddenly Virgil's simple appearance is what saves her. It has nothing to do with what wound she has or how long it has been.
This then also leads to a pretty major problem of not really caring at all about what happens to the characters. Last time we talked to Khan was in episode 2. Now we are at her possible death scene. I have no idea how they could have expected to get anyone invested in these characters when they give them no time to shine outside 1 very short moment 3 episodes ago.
I also feel like Drummer works poorly as a playable character at least with the story they wanted to tell. Drummer will simply take a stance in a situation for the sake of what her character is. She doesn't work well for letting the player make choices because clearly they want Drummer to act a certain way no matter what so there are plenty of choices that are not choices. Obviously these games need to steer the player a certain way but far too many times do we focus on Drummer as the character that she already is and it makes her feel super lacking in a game about making choices. And again the game fails pretty bad for people who have no experience with Expanse before playing unlike pretty much every other Telltale game where they take the time to make sure people new to the world understand.
As a whole I think the game progressively fell apart each episode. I feel like episode 1 was easily the best. Then episode 2 felt like a retread with no choices. Episode 3 had good atmosphere but again was way too much of the same until the ending. Then episode 4 felt like pure filler and episode 5 wanted to wrap up before it even got started. Characters was probably the most disappointing part of the game. Probably one of the loneliest Telltale games with how little you interact with anyone. Action always felt really slow and always lacked weight. Then issues of how short the game is and all the release problems. And I know it is old by now but they should have released it all at once.
So I guess that's really it. Not exactly a big splash for Telltale's comeback. Can't think of much else to say other than I feel like Expanse was very lacking.
Cox be like:
Looks like they did you one better: it's possible for him to just run away and die off-screen to Khan instead of having a final fight with him
The shorter wait times kinda feel like a monkeys paw. On one hand we don't have to wait months on the other they're extremely short.
34 mins....It took me 34 mins to finish episode 5. They can't get away with this again. This is beyond embarrassing. That aside...the episode was fine. The pacing was better than most episodes but it was so short that it felt like it ended after a few scenes. More combat sequences than any episode so far and they were okay. Making a lot of big decisions in the last episode makes a lot of the previous choices feel pointless, which I don't love. Overall. Expanse is fine. Its very 6/10, which is so unfortunate for a telltale game. There was no real highs but no massive lows either. I guess there's the DLC episode still but watch that be 15 mins long.
Final death count was Kahn, Arlen, and Maya. The issue is that outside of Maya. I uh really didn't care to see Kahn die. Kind of annoyed how I'm pretty sure it involves not finding her stupid cigar but whatever. I think Arlen dies no matter what and I still don't know why Maya dies.
Love how the chick from last episode is just like "oh BTW I killed all the pirates offscreen lol
Also I kept cox alive for the whole game and all it amounted to was him kicking arlen and telling us we're even lol
Yeah I don't understand the story style of Expanse at all. It has no highs but it also has no lows. It really lacks having an actual plot. Like it never does anything I outright disliked but it also never does anything great or memorable. Even the worst Telltale writing had some kind of season arc while this really has nothing. The storytelling just comes off really amateur with how much it seems to forget to be telling a story (poor pacing, lack of interesting characters, overarching narrative has no grandeur, antagonist are underdeveloped, no/minimal character arcs, repetition) it feels like nothing happens. So as a whole the story feels like a lot of words that say nothing.
Was the prisoner you meet in ep 4 supposed to be someone from the show? Felt like a canon character cameo
The best part of the episode truly was when Cox officially lost his Nick status and did something.
Also i liked how he appeared at the end you can see him in the background upstairs when they're all talking and that's not even mentioned whatsoever him and Drummer are cool again i guess lmao
You pretty much said it all i feel like one of the biggest issues of this game for me was i felt like the pacing of the story was generally awful there were pretty good moments but they were buried underneath filler and/or because the episodes were too short.
It's not even like the game is awful but what could've been a pretty good game is hindered by all these problems the QTE's being there just for the sake of it for example and being so slow (they even introduced a new type of QTE where you have to smash the same button for the last fight that they never used before in the whole game).
The action scenes lacking any weight like you said and feeling like i'm seeing a bunch of actors doing mocap,not having enough time with the crew but when we did it was really good like having a scene with one of your crewmates if you gave them a gift that you found when exploring.
I've seen some people complain about that but to me it's stuff like that that makes these interactions meaningful and earned and makes these games well actual games because not everyone is going to get that same scene but unfortunately it doesn't happen very often because you don't spend enough time with the crew.
I could probably say more but yeah it's too bad i still overall enjoyed it but it wasn't the "return" of Telltale games to me here's hoping Wolf 2 will be the one.
Finished the episode in about 35 minutes, officially making it the shortest Telltale episode thus far, though the download was 8GB so seems like there might be a good amount of variation. The final choices screen also made it seem like certain things could go in pretty different ways but who knows. I enjoyed the episode more so than episode 4, decent action, the most choices in the entire series, but the incredibly short length is pretty disheartening, especially with how fast paced the episode was. As a series, I wouldn't go anywhere near as far as calling this the weakest Telltale game, there are definitely weaker. But I would put it somewhere in the middle. Visually it looks pretty good, the animation, especially facial animation, is improved, I greatly enjoyed the exploration despite the suffering it caused me, and honestly the game did interest me in the television series. I especially loved the worldbuilding and how near dystopian the state of the galaxy is.
However it definitely has its issues. Outside of Maya, you don't get to really spend anytime with the other crewmates, especially Rayen and Arlen who are the only characters you don't get any one on one with. It also often relies on the player having watched the tv show, especially with episode 4. While the rest of the animation is pretty great, the action looks and feels sluggish, and this is likely due to Deck Nine's inexperience with action sequence. It also has pretty wild pacing issues. To me, episodes 1 and 3 are tied for the best. Episode 1 feels more like classic modern Telltale, but I was absolutely enthralled by the worldbuilding in episode 3 and had fun with the relationship between Drummer and Maya. I would definitely call episode 4 the weakest of the bunch. The penultimate curse continues! It also definitely feels like the game was originally going to be released all at once, but a decision somewhere further in development caused them to split the episodes up.
I would still like to see Telltale work with third party studios. Heck, I wouldn't even mind if Telltale worked with Deck Nine again, but maybe with a project that features less action lol.
The weak action honestly killed me at times. Watching Arlen take like a million of these weak ass punches from Drummer as he does nothing to defend himself and the second she stops he isn't even meant to be passed out he just walks it off like "Owie!!!" It is such weird fight choreography.
And exactly. Moments like Khan and Virgil's scenes in episode 2 were probably the best parts of the whole game. I seriously do not understand at all how anyone working on this game thought people would care about your crew when you give them nothing. Sure those 2 moments are good but did they really expect our single conversation with these characters to then go 2 episodes never interacting with them to carry our investment? It is like they gave them a sprinkle of development and decided that was enough. Maya is the only other character who seems to get the most attention but she is ironically a very flat character who might as well just wear a name tag that says "LOVE INTEREST" because she really has nothing else going on.
Yeah, Julie Mao's an important character in the show/books.
Pretty weak for Telltale standards tbh, understandable ig since it's more of a Deck Nine game but still, at least their other IPs that spawned from works I wasn't familiar with managed to get me invested in the world and characters (GoT, Borderlands, Guardians)
Drummer just isn't a good playable character, she has a whole established backstory the game never bothers to explain (and I didn't care enough to look it up) and you don't really have that much agency over her, also didn't care about her whole making the Belt a better place thing because well, the game gave me no reason to care about it
Choices were lacking (come on, 2 dialogue options instead of 4?) and their consequences elusive, side characters were as one dimensional as they can get and the story's length is ridiculous for its price (and the story had nothing novel to offer as far as SF goes, honestly.), I'd say this is a 3/10 overall, will probably forget about it in under 6 months
Erik_Telltale dev/communications person replying to plenty of comments on reddit about the whole series -both good and bad criticism with ❤️
Poor guy, but glad to see they're being proactive in reading as many fan comments as possible.
https://reddit.com/r/telltale/s/XlfC7JozDZ
This may have been too nosy, but I checked the credits and couldn't find an Erik who works at telltale itself, but there is one Erik who works as Global Marketing at Splash Damage Ltd.
(Which is a weird company to partner with for this.. they make a lot of multiplayer titles, but mostly being used here for more QA and Marketing?)
Tbh, they were trying way too hard for us to like Maya. Ironically, that made me dislike her more out of spite lol. I noticed that with the other crew members, there was at least one mean/stern dialogue option but with Maya, Drummer was always all lovey dovey 😍.
Btw, what happens to Maya if she's alive? Do they even explain how she goes from supposedly one of the most important persons in Drummer's life to someone who's never mentioned later on?
(not a question aimed solely at you, just didn't want to make a new post lol)
It seems that if Maya is alive she basically says she is going to stay with Julie to help the belt or whatever.
...And then they never saw each other again!
Episode 5 came out and I've still got to play episode 3 and the rest. I guess that shows my enthusiasm for this game.
I spaced Cox in ep 1 and he was still miraculously there to kick Arlen and tell us we're even.
Gotta love it when a choice-driven game totally disregards your first big choice without even a flimsy hand-wavy attempt at an explanation.
Maybe a mod should make a general feedback thread for Telltale in the general chat now that Expanse has wrapped and we can give some overall feedback? Not sure if Telltale actually checks here but maybe we could have a spot to voice some suggestions.
I mean, that sounds more like a glitch.
If so, it's a pretty major one.
He was also miraculously in the brig to drink whisky and comment on Maya being thrown in there with him -- all despite being spaced.
I don't know whether to laugh or to cry at this episode's length.
Wow.
Well.
Starting off with the pros:
It was good to finally have an episode that feels like it honors the classic Telltale Choice Style.
Major decisions finally had a felt impact on how scenes and character interactions played out.
I killed Rayen (I decided on going full Scorched Earth evil since with Maya dead I can't get a 100% crew saved award on this file) and characters ended up being freaked out about Drummer. (Turns out there was a lot different in scenes because of this according to the choices screen cool)
The way they used zero-gravity as a tactical element to sneak in the cargo bay (and in general on the Artemis in this episode) was cool.
I hadn't realised that everyone always had their Mag Boots on, and things could still float freely if dead/not grounded on the ship.
When the Artemis blew up, Drummer looked upon the explosion, and the camera started to pan up to the stars as the music swelled -- I thought that was the ending right there and then. That would have been disappointing, thankfully it wasn't.
Speaks to how abrupt the other endings have conditioned me to expect tho...
The ending-ending was... uh okay? IDK who the guy on the radio was (but I looked him up and he played Tyreese on TWD Show, so cool) and it was a little too vaguely poking at what I assume is a show-reference.
"We last met while you had a gun pointed at me" Uh did we?? Not as me the player, we didn't.
Anyway, overall, this episode was actually a good one in terms of choices but goddamn that was still terribly short and unsatisfying overall.
See y'all in October/November for the bonus episode I guess??
I wish I ended up liking this game but I felt nothing in the end. It's kinda crazy that minecraft story mode did a much better job at making us feel for characters and actually telling a story. This game was just a series of events, and then the credits hit. Let's hope Wolf doesn't end up like this game.