Developer Telltale is back at it again to bring us an amazing story where we can make our own decisions to alter each outcome. ‘The Expanse’ is a whole new adventure set in space, taking on the role of Camina Drummer, voiced by Cara Gee, the original actress from the Amazon Original Series.

Taking place before season one of the show and jumping into the space boots of Drummer. Beginning with the first episode of five, you and the crew aboard ‘The Artemis’ set out on exploring the dangerous and uncharted edges of ‘The Belt’. Using your expert knowledge and skill set to scavenge wrecked ships, combat fearsome pirates, and fly around in Zero-G, you must make many decisions to reveal Camina Drummer’s resolve.

Naturally, the first episode tends to start off the slowest as you get introduced to the characters and controls. As you explore ‘The Artemis’ there are many things to interact with, giving you a pretence about some characters’ backstories, adding notes to your logs for you to read at any time, and just some generally nice things to make the world feel more lively.

About halfway through the episode, things start to pick up pace; time to scavenge and fly around in zero-g. After approaching a wreck you get to go outside your ship and explore freely in space and through what is left of another ship. Only upon investigation can you find out what has happened, and things get quite interesting, but I’ll leave that for you to experience, it definitely left me wondering what is to come.

Unfortunately, the first episode was kind of short, only taking me around 1 hour to complete. Usually, Telltale episodes last around 2 – 3 hours from my experience, hopefully, future episodes will go longer.

Now, you can extend your playtime a little by taking your time and exploring that little bit more and completing some side activities, or starting another save to see different outcomes. I personally won’t do that until I’ve finished the full series, I like to accept my decisions until the final outcome in the finale.

Graphically, it’s exactly what you would expect from your Telltale series, not having overly the most amazing graphics, but still looks great, giving a good amount of detail to ‘The Artemis’, wrecked ships, and space itself, fitting the story well.

One of the main things when it comes to telling a story is how the characters react not just emotionally but through voice and through physical movement and facial expressions. Telltale has always done this well and has done so in The Expanse.

When it comes to voice acting in games, I love when I hear a unique accent, Camina Drummers’ accent is one of them, making me curious as to where that accent comes from. The array of voice acting from the rest of the cast gives off that space adventure setting having people from all over the world. There is one small thing, whether it was just me or not, but I did find that Drummers’ voice would on occasion go quiet or randomly loud.

The first episode was unfortunately on the shorter side, and started off a little slow, however, picked up pace about halfway through and got really interesting leaving me wondering what is to come. The Expanse is a story I will definitely get invested in and look forward to future episodes.

Written by: MrVibeAU