Game of Thrones – A Telltale Games Series Review

Game of Thrones – A Telltale Games Series is the latest title from Telltale Games, the adventure game developers responsible for titles like The Walking Dead and The Wolf Among Us. As anyone acquainted with these previous titles can probably gather, Game of Thrones continues the trend of offering a rich, detailed story in a game that largely plays out like a choose-your-own-adventure book. Fans of the lore in A Song and Ice of Fire will likely find a lot to like about Game of Thrones, but it could be a little overwhelming or confusing to newcomers.

Anyone familiar with Telltale’s brand of games will instantly be familiar with how Game of Thrones is played. Players take control of various members of House Forrester – a little-known clan that is only mentioned once in the books – as they try to make the right decisions to ensure the safety and continuation of the house. Primarily this means players will be participating in politically-charged conversations, but there are also a few action sequences where dangers to the house are much more apparent.

To control all of the possible actions, Telltale uses a pretty intuitive set of prompts so that players generally know what they’re supposed to be doing in a variety of contexts. Even if players “screw up” by making a wrong choice, Game of Thrones does not punish players by giving them a Game Over so much as it autosaves for players to have to live with the actions that they chose for their characters. For those not accustomed to this style of play, Game of Thrones can feel a bit overwhelming at times since it places a time limit on most decisions. And unlike a lot of games with choice, the “right” answer isn’t really ever apparent.

As a fan of the novels, but someone who has seen very little of the actual show, it was really neat to see a lot of the Game of Thrones universe represented visually. It isn’t as impressive as the show of course, and there is some weird, painterly filter effect on the visuals that would look better if it was applied more consistently, but nothing about it distracts from the awesome setup and surprising narrative turns for this series of episodes.

Because it’s episodic, Game of Thrones might feel a tad on the short side – clocking in at being an hour or two – but the amount of stuff that happens in that span of time ensures that it’s time well spent. The episode also ends on a very surprising cliffhanger (at least, it did given my decision-making), which left me eager to see where the next chapter goes.

Game of Thrones is more of the same output from Telltale. It won’t necessarily win over critics of their previous titles (unless they’re huge fans of the show or novels, maybe), but that certainly isn’t a bad thing. Game of Thrones captures the political intrigue and decision-making that makes the world George R.R. Martin created so interesting in the first place, even if it is on a smaller scale.