game of thrones a telltale games series season one

GAME OF THRONES A TELLTALE GAMES SERIES SEASON ONE TV

It forces you to make decisions that cement your leadership, despite your youth, and serve your subjects' interests. Combat isn't the game's strongest suit, though, and I suspect Gared only exists for mechanical story purposes.Įthan's storyline is about the unforgiving responsibility of hereditary leadership. Gared's storyline is about brutal violence and battlefield decisions. It seems in this chapter that Telltale has attempted to distil the show into its three main components. Gared blunders upon Ramsay Bolton flaying a man in the woods just before Ramsay is due to arrive at Ironrath, increasing the sense of threat to Ethan).

GAME OF THRONES A TELLTALE GAMES SERIES SEASON ONE TV

The episode is structured like an episode of the TV show, jumping between interweaving storylines that reinforce each other narratively (e.g. Lives and fortunes rest on seemingly innocuous postures whose consequences you can only anxiously guess at.Īs if to echo the steadily improving quality of the episode, the characters we meet later on are voiced by the original cast of the TV show, rather than by some actors who mistakenly believe that the Nottingham, Belfast, Carlisle, Middleborough, Edinburgh, and Manchester accents are all interchangeable.Īs in all areas of life, Peter Dinklage makes everything better. The scene involving Mira and Cersei in the throne room, conspirator Margaery in attendance along with Tyrion Lannister, demonstrates just how well the socially and psychologically complex gameplay of Walking Dead translates to the intrigue-filled world of Game of Thrones. Here the game becomes richer still, as Mira must decide how far to help her family by appealing to Margaery and, eventually, Cersei Lannister – a matter complicated by the fact that the Forresters were until very recently loyal to House Stark in the war of the five kings. Then a third character is introduced: Mira, Ethan's sister, who's serving as a handmaiden to Margaery Tyrell at King's Landing. The future of House Forrester rests on your diplomacy with a psychopath in a position of unassailable political and military power. He's the son of the Ward of the North and mediator in a dispute between House Forrester and a rival house that goes back centuries (but is ostensibly instigated by a deadly encounter between Gared Tuttle and a couple of soldiers after the Red Wedding). First you take part in a touching childlike conversation between Ethan and his younger siblings, and immediately after that you're presented with a truly terrible string of choices about how (and whether) to deal with a thief in a public trial.Įthan's first big challenge as Lord is to deal with the psychotic torturer Ramsay Bolton. Like Robb Stark, Ethan is thrust into a position of leadership at a young age, and the game depicts this transition surefootedly. Ethan Forrester is the eldest (eligible) son of Lord Gregor Forrester, who was killed at the Red Wedding. Then you're introduced to a second character and things start to look up. What do we say to the god of death? Not today Pretty soon the infamously bloody events of the Red Wedding start to unfold around you and you're thrust into sequence of close escapes and gory murders.īut you don't know any of the characters involved, so you don't really care who dies, and even if you did the the weightless sprites, paper robot motions, and cursory QTEs are hopelessly ill-equipped to convey the splashy, muddy, hefty horror of a medieval battle.Ĭopy-pasted and caricaturishly evil enemy faces, soppy fantasy music, and a range of groping efforts at vaguely northern accents that swing wildly from Newcastle to Derry reinforce the initial impression that Game of Thrones is an embarrassing stumble with one of the most beloved franchises in the world. However, the first real dilemma you're faced with is whether or not to hurt a fellow squire's feelings by telling him that you've just been promoted. The gameplay closely follows the template of Walking Dead, with QTE action sequences, open-ended conversation trees, and choices that have potentially far-reaching consequences. You play as Gared Tuttle, well-liked squire to Lord Forrester of Ironrath, a minor Stark bannerman. The action begins outside Walder Frey's stronghold on the night of the Red Wedding. Telltale's Game of Thrones has not just one impossible legacy to live up to, but two: HBO's adaptation of George RR Martin's Song of Ice and Fire, and its own seminal Walking Dead adaptation.Īt first it seems to have betrayed both legacies in the most embarrassing way.

Game of thrones a telltale games series season one