If you were expecting Telltale’s return to blow you away with amazingly improved gameplay and graphics, The Expanse is more likely to be a moderate upgrade than anything revolutionary. It certainly felt good to be playing high quality, narrative-focused adventure games again, but without any major surprises to shake up the Telltale recipe, it mostly felt like business as usual. The only concern I’ve got is that, after going dark for so long, recreating the Telltale magic without changing up the formula too much might not be enough to recapture people’s interest.

It’s by no means enough to excite those who aren’t drawn in by the story that’s clearly still the main attraction, but they’ve definitely come a long way from the janky tank controls of The Walking Dead Season One. In the gameplay department though, the improvements are somewhat heftier, as the episode I played had me floating through space and magnetizing to the sides of a derelict ship in search of scraps. It’s not a mindblowing leap forward or anything, but there’s a very tangible jump in quality that’s certainly welcome. There are some minor but noticeable upgrades too, like the fact that The Expanse looks and sounds better than any Telltale game before it. I didn’t realize just how much I missed these bite-sized episodes every couple of weeks. Per usual, making choices and watching the story unfold are an absolute joy.

In the first episode, I had the opportunity to choose how to deal with a disloyal crewmate and was forced to pick between procuring valuable supplies by dismembering a friend, or losing those supplies but keeping 20% more of said friend. You’ll walk around exploring the world (or in this case, spaceship) and solve small puzzles in between the real meat of the episode – building up or irreparably ruining relationships with your comrades as you careen towards impossible decisions with far-reaching consequences. Aside from the theatrical new setting, not much has changed from the familiar episodic formula.

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