This week, Telltale Games (The Walking Dead) releases the first episode of its adventure game series based on HBO's Game of Thrones. You can download it on Steam for PC and Mac and on the PlayStation 4 today, on the Xbox One tomorrow, and for iOS on December 4.
Rather than put you into the shoes of one of the show's many main characters, Game of Thrones the videogame introduces the Forresters, a clan briefly referenced in George R. R. Martin's books, then has you take control of various members of the family scattered throughout Westeros. If you've ever found yourself shouting at the screen trying to get a Game of Thrones character to do things to stay alive, now's your chance to control what happens. When do you execute a foe, and when do you show mercy? With what house do you place your allegiances? With whom do you share your deepest secrets, hoping that they won't betray you?
WIRED's resident Game of Thrones superfan Laura Hudson and I have played the new episode, and we made starkly different choices. All in all, we feel the first episode is well worth playing for fans of the show, although newbies may not find it as impactful since it relies on the use of well-known characters to an extent that Telltale's game of The Walking Dead did not.
In the vein of Laura's recaps of weekly episodes of the show, we thought we'd go over how we played through this episode. Huge spoilers for the game, the show, and perhaps even the books lie ahead. You'll need a few hours to play through the first episode, so if you don't want to be spoiled, join us after you've played.
Laura: Game of Thrones always has been a story about choices. Yes, every story is a story about choices, but George R. R, Martin's epic takes a much broader, more complicated view of their consequences. Westeros is a world where every action has countless reactions, and the decisions of everyone from kings to commoners are profoundly interconnected, sometimes in ways that take years to reveal themselves.
The new Game of Thrones videogame lets you step into the shoes of five characters from Westeros and make some of those choices yourself. Telltale Games made its name with an adaptation of another popular television property, The Walking Dead. Rather than fighting, stabbing or shooting, it focused on characters, dialogue and hard choices—with a bit of interactive action thrown in. Game of Thrones gets the same treatment, and it's a series that has tended to pan away from big battles in favor of dialogue, political maneuvering, and what I will call more personal violence.
Although Game of Thrones offers front-row seats to the most pivotal moments in Westerosi history, I've always loved how the series shifts to the commoners' perspective to show how those moments pass into myth, song and history. We get quite a bit of this everyman perspective in the first chapter of the game, which opens on the Northern soldiers of House Forrester drinking wine, talking shit and singing bawdy songs about nobles. As time goes by, we slowly realize they're celebrating a wedding, and suddenly The Twins come into views as "The Rains of Castamere" plays softly in the background. Yup, it's the Red Wedding, moments before all hell breaks loose.
Young squire Gared Tuttle is having a great day until then: Not only is he promoted from squire to soldier, but Lord Forrester wants him in the vanguard for the upcoming assault on the Lannister stronghold of Casterly Rock. This planned Frey teamup could have been a potentially massive blow to the wealthy family's fortunes that might have turned the War of Five Kings in favor of the Starks. Alas, Robb Stark already has made too many bad choices, so that isn't how this story will go. This time, however, we see the most infamous moment of Game of Thrones play out not among its lordly, "important" victims, but rather the thousands of men who died in less heralded but equally bloody ways.
Chris: I think they botched the reveal that you're at the Red Wedding by putting the words "The Red Wedding" on the screen. That's a little too on the nose and it robs players of putting that together on their own. (Plus, nobody knew it as "The Red Wedding" until after it happened, and this was just before.) Regardless, it's a great place to begin since it is the decisive victory of the Lannisters that causes the Northern alliance to fall apart. Giving us the roles of a Northern family that was allied with the Starks but must now reconsider what to do now that King's Landing is victorious and Roose Bolton is running roughshod over the North makes tremendous sense when you consider Telltale's games are about making hard choices: Do we follow our hearts and spit in King Joffrey's face, or do we prudently bend the knee?
I think the only choice I might rescind, because it might in retrospect have been dumb, was my response when Cersei Lannister asked me to whom I would be loyal---Joffrey, or Margaery. At this point, we'd left Gared behind and were playing as Mira Forrester, the eldest daughter of the house and a handmaiden to Margaery Tyrell in King's Landing. She's aware of the dire situation her house finds itself in, with her father dead and the Boltons bearing down, and trying to work the diplomatic angles so the Lannisters bail out the Forresters.
I said I'd be loyal to Margaery, which seemed to make sense as her handmaiden. But it appears I'd told Cersei that I wouldn't listen to her son the King. Whoops. I think I was a little flustered---Telltale's facial recreations of the series' stars are a little hit-and-miss, but Lena Headey's scowling face is the most lifelike. You don't want to be under Cersei's piercing gaze.
Other than that, I felt good about my choices. What did you do during that scene? And how did you handle your official duties during the ensuing I Was A Teenaged Lord segment?
Laura: I bent the knee so fast you'd think I was doing lunges. But then again, Margaery had specifically told me before entering the throne room that I should say whatever Cersei needed to hear, so I figured she'd understand it was all just theater. Of course, my display of instant loyalty to Joffrey just made Cersei think I was an inconstant turncoat, so I'm not sure there was any way to completely please her.
I really enjoy how the game plays with the experience of time: When you're Mira, walking the long red carpet of the throne room towards an angry Cersei feels like it takes forever, because of course it would. When you're trying to parse difficult options, however, you're often given just a few seconds and time seems to evaporate instantly. Telltale does a great job making these decisions feel harrowing, not only because they're timed and the stakes are often life and death, but because they're irreversible (unless you want to start a new game) and they carry over to future chapters of the serialized game.
Sometimes, my reactions under pressure surprised me, especially when violence was involved; I became more impulsive, reactionary. Once, after watching a loved one get murdered, I immediately killed several people in revenge, including one who begged for mercy and pleaded that his family wouldn't survive without him. Seconds later, when my temper cooled and I considered the political ramifications, I realized that 1) it was cruel and 2) I would be supremely screwed when Roose Bolton found out. I suddenly had a little more sympathy for Ned and Robb, despite all my armchair quarterbacking of their bad decisions.
In quieter moments, the uncertainty that clouded my choices often left me frozen. Imagine you're a handmaiden whose family might die horribly if you can't devise some way to help them. There's a mysterious key on the table of your noble mistress, and you have no idea what it opens. The game offers you the choice to steal it or leave it. Take the key, and you might sabotage your relationship with the one person who has the power to help you. Leave it, and you'll be breaking videogaming's cardinal rule to always pick up keys. I felt paralyzed, uncertain, so I did nothing—and seconds later felt sure my inaction had doomed my family as well. Why was I such a coward?
I tried to take the middle road as Ethan, the teenage lord, takes over House Forrester after the death of his father. When a Forrester soldier gets caught stealing, I decided to send him to the Wall rather than cut off his fingers or pardon him. (Honestly, I'd have let him choose between his fingers and the Wall if that had been an option, but I couldn't just let him off the hook in a time of war!) Later, when I learned that Ramsay Bolton—the only sociopath meaner than Joffrey—was en route to punish my family for Gared's vengeful killing of their loyal Whitehill soldiers, I chose the more conciliatory advisor as my second-in-command rather than the bellicose one. I figured there was no point in trying to use force, since Lord Bolton had been appointed Warden of the North and had the full backing of the Lannisters, and would crush us regardless if we resisted. Given three options, I chose diplomacy over bribery or force, but when I saw how things turned out … Well, let's just say I'd choose a different option the second time around. Hindsight, as always, is 20/20.
Chris: I did not take the key. Seemed like an obvious trap, setting up an opportunity for me to unthinkingly swipe something and have it visited back on me later as a bad choice. I like games that test to see if you're paying attention. On that note I really appreciate the bit of Gared's chapter that revolves around the "North Grove" and having the player remember to only mention it to Gared's uncle. Then it dangles all sorts of temptations in front of you, to get you to spill the beans early. (Also, from a writing perspective, I like the way they've set this up, because now I really want to know what the North Grove is.)
It's tough to role-play these characters with only the information they have at hand, since we know so much about the characters they're interacting with---and what's going to happen in the future. That informed a lot of my decision-making as Ethan, especially with the knowledge that Mira was screwing things up at King's Landing and odds were we were not going to be rescued by Joffrey. When we had a thief in our midst, I thought about someone Ethan would have no knowledge of---Stannis Baratheon, who, even though he was bailed out by Ser Davos the Onion Knight, chopped off three of his fingers anyway because that's what you do to a thief.
This was bolstered by the fact that Ethan's advisors were telling me that my father would have done the same thing. Also, it seemed to me to be the kinder punishment: The thief was saying that his family couldn't survive without him. So instead of banishing him to the Wall, I chopped off his fingers instead. Crime paid for, and he's still with his family.
I was also motivated by the fact that I knew that the situation was about to get worse, and that Ramsay Snow was about to be at our gates. That's part of why I chose the other advisor, the bellicose war general, over the kindly sage who was pushing diplomacy. We were about to get invaded. Additionally, the loose cannon guy seemed more likely to betray me if he thought I was weak. So it was actually part of a calculated strategy of keeping my friends close, but my enemies closer. The nice guy wouldn't betray me.
Oh, and you didn't see this part of the game, Laura, but the nice guy totes betrayed me. Well, he didn't turn traitor exactly, but he got super pissed off, breaking his kindly Grandpa demeanor, and told me I was a fool and nearly stormed out of the small council meeting! This only reinforced my belief that I was doing the right thing, or at least that I had succeeded in not being misled by a friendly smile.
When Ramsay Snow came to Ironrath, I met him at the gates in fighting stance, and stood up to his egregious demands. That got Ethan killed. A true shocker, since I didn't think Telltale would kill off the most interesting point-of-view character at the end of Episode One! And that was the first signal that this was definitely Game of Thrones.
Ethan died in your game, right? (Jeez, tell me he did and that I didn't bungle my way into killing him.)
Laura: I still defend my choice of Walling the thief, especially because the moment he was arrested he started screaming really loudly about how we were all going to die and everyone needed to run from the Boltons. That's not just thievery—that's sedition, and I couldn't abide him spreading seeds of dissent among the people. To the Wall you go! Also, the angry bellicose guy also almost storms out of the meeting if you don't choose him, so I think you get roughly the same reaction either way—it's just more jarring from the nice grandpa.
I definitely think that my awareness of the characters and the backstory influenced my choices, something that isn't an issue in The Walking Dead because it deals almost entirely with new characters. But knowing the future had perhaps the biggest impact, for me. Based on the time period of the game—between the third and fifth seasons—I knew that Lord Bolton wasn't going to lose his grip on the North any time soon, so why fight a losing military battle against a much stronger force? Also I'm pretty sure if a brave Northern House had successfully held out against the Boltons, their story would have spread far and wide, but we don't hear jack about that in either the books or the show. Based on my foreknowledge, a fight seemed hopeless, so I didn't even try. I was also very careful not to alienate Margaery as Mira, knowing that she would remain an influential political force even after the Purple Wedding.
On the flip side, this sort of background knowledge made me even more suspicious when dealing with unfamiliar characters. When I had the option of speaking to Margaery alone or with my fellow handmaiden Sera, I asked her to leave because I had no idea what her secret court allegiances might be. I don't even know you, lady! But it turned out that I did know her—we were actually close friends—and my lack of trust hurt her deeply. Whoops!
And yes, even if you try diplomacy, poor little Lord Ethan still ends up as the ritual Game of Thrones shock death. Maybe I'm just gullible, but it actually was shocking to me, since so much of the first chapter is devoted to grooming him as the successor and main character. That's how they get you! It's like a mini-Robb Stark all over again. Of course, I chose to protect my twin sister from Ramsay when he tried to kidnap her, and maybe if I'd let him cart her off and hunt her for sport I might have survived? But I'm just not that kind of man, Chris!
Finally, can I say how satisfying it was to get a dialogue option that read, "Fuck the Boltons"? That's some bumper sticker shit, right there.
Chris: I declined to yell out "Winter Is Coming!" during the opening scene. Maybe I'll get another chance to do that in a later episode? Oh, who am I kidding: There are no second chances in Westeros.
I had the same issue with the Sera question---I didn't understand that she was my best pal and that I was shunning her by speaking in private. Insofar as we both had this problem I'd say that's a flaw in the writing; the choice we didn't understand was a choice. But this was the exception to the rule; in general I felt like I had enough information to make the decisions I was making.
I played Telltale's breakout success The Walking Dead because I was a fan of Telltale---not of the comic or the AMC show, neither of which I had experienced. Besides a couple of token guest appearances by show characters, Telltale's Walking Dead stood alone. But Game of Thrones relies heavily on having you interact with show favorites. Would a fan of point-and-click adventures with no knowledge of the show enjoy Game of Thrones the way I enjoyed Walking Dead? I can't really know the answer, but after episode one I'm starting to doubt it. Too much of the drama seems to come from the player's assumed foreknowledge of the adversary characters with whom they are parleying.
Telltale fans won't find many mechanical differences from its previous games. Tap Q repeatedly! Click on a hotspot to repel an advancing zomb...uh, knight! Collect inventory items that you don't ever use! The one design tweak that I thought was most clever considering the source material: Rather than outlined in comic-style black lines and cel-shaded coloring, Game of Thrones graphics have an oil-panting filter applied to them. It looks nicer on the backgrounds than it does on the people. But it's a good stylistic choice that helps to paper over the fact that these games will never have the budget to make them look super high-fidelity.
I'm ready for the next episode. (What's in the North Grove?!?!)
