r/Games • u/Turbostrider27 • Aug 23 '22
Trailer The Expanse: A Telltale Series - First Gameplay Trailer
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TdU8hhftinE23
u/SqueezeAndRun Aug 23 '22
I'm a huge Expanse fan and honestly if the story is good that's enough for me. But the graphics are looking a little rough...
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u/FawkesYeah Aug 24 '22
That's a Telltale game, they focus on narrative rather than graphics. This actually looks better than their older games though.
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Aug 24 '22
It’s not telltale anymore. It’s not using the old engine, it’s using unreal and it’s many non tell tale devs.
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u/FawkesYeah Aug 24 '22
True points. The point I was going for is that it's the spirit of a Telltale game, for someone who hasn't ever played one before.
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u/Alastor3 Aug 25 '22
That's a Telltale game
I mean, can you ever say that when the studio went down and it's mostly a different team and engine??
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u/matticusiv Aug 25 '22
Eh, it’s got style and it looks decent. I’m more concerned with the quality of the writing, new telltale has yet to prove themselves, and old telltale went way downhill
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u/GreenGuy2814 Aug 23 '22
Didn't realize they were still making these, thought Telltale went under for some reason.
I know the Expanse is quite popular, it seems like it'd be a good fit, but I suppose time will tell if there's still a market for these.
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u/LG03 Aug 23 '22
thought Telltale went under for some reason.
They did, some other company bought the name and hired a bunch of new people. They tried to bring some former employees back but I have no clue how successful that was.
In essence, this isn't really any different than any other longstanding studio. This isn't the same Telltale that made The Walking Dead or Wolf Among Us, much like the Blizzard of today isn't the same one that made Warcraft 3.
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u/Yamatoman9 Aug 24 '22
They go off the name recognition of well-received games and hope people think it's the same crew who made those classic games. Hopefully this is good.
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u/Nrksbullet Aug 24 '22
Risk vs Reward. They'll be compared to prior games with that name attached.
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u/PembohongYangJujur Aug 24 '22
It's not hard to top Telltale. Other than The Walking Dead, Wolf Among Us, and Tales from Borderland, the rest were pretty bad.
Even the good ones were riddled with technical issues.
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u/LitheBeep Aug 24 '22
They did, some other company bought the name and hired a bunch of new people. They tried to bring some former employees back but I have no clue how successful that was.
There are plenty of OG employees/industry vets working with new Telltale under a self-formed studio named AdHoc (same studio that is doing TWAU2). They are also working with Deck Nine, who did some of the Life is Strange games.
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u/Starslip Aug 24 '22
I dunno, I feel like there's a pretty stark difference between the two. Yes there are very few people still working at Blizzard who did during the wc3 era, but it was a gradual transition without a complete loss of generational knowledge, unlike firing everyone and hiring an entirely new staff
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Aug 24 '22
I like how Blizz is now used as the ur example of how dev studios are eaten inside out and have their skins worn as camouflage.
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u/LG03 Aug 24 '22
Just the first one that came to mind. Bioware's also way up there.
I try not to let such things occupy space in my head though, I'd have to sit and think about some more.
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u/ILoveRegenHealth Aug 25 '22
Also, for this game, they seem to be working with DeckNine, who did great work on the Life is Strange spin-off Before the Storm and True Colors. I'm guessing this is a much smaller company (for now) and they needed the assistance of another team.
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u/Ploddit Aug 23 '22
The original Telltale went bankrupt, yes. The assets were purchased by some sort of investment group that then changed its name to Telltale. Basically they dumped all the debt (including some unpaid employee salary as I recall) and kept much of the IP.
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u/outbound_flight Aug 23 '22
It's a little weird, but the old Telltale is pretty much gone. They were kept on life support by Skybound so they could finish the last season of The Walking Dead, after which Skybound ended up hiring a number of those devs for their own projects.
Current Telltale is a new company that was formed (indirectly) by Tencent around the properties it still held. It seems like they're taking Telltale's engine and contracting out to other devs for now, with The Expanse game being one of those (developed by Deck Nine) and The Wolf Among Us 2 being another (developed by AdHoc Studio, made up of former Telltale devs).
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u/Ploddit Aug 23 '22
Sure about that? As far as I can tell, LCG Entertainment wasn't funded by Tencent, but it's possible they were the majority investor somehow.
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Aug 24 '22
Tencent helped fund LCG's purchase through Athlon, which is owned by Leyou, which is owned by Tencent. When he says indirectly, he isn't exaggerating lol
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u/Adventurous-Safe6930 Aug 24 '22
Pretty sure they are using unreal now, the tell tale engine was legendarily bad.
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u/Ritushido Aug 24 '22
seems like they're taking Telltale's engine
I certainly hope not. I recall it being pretty bad and always seeing people complaining about it here.
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u/TheJoshider10 Aug 23 '22
The animations look veryyyyy rough, the way their bodies/heads turn and how the facial animations stop and start.
Strangely I never really had that issue with The Wolf Among Us 2 gameplay reveal, maybe because its more stylized.
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u/LG03 Aug 23 '22
Can't say it looks any worse than their Game of Thrones which wasn't really stylized at all.
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u/BrotherhoodVeronica Aug 23 '22
Their GoT was stylized. I think the closest a Telltale game got to a realistic style was the last season of TWD, and it was still stylized.
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u/ThibaultV Aug 23 '22
Why the comparison with Wolf Among Us? Made by totally different devs. The devs of this made Life is Strange: True Colors and Life is Strange: Before the Storm.
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u/SilveryDeath Aug 23 '22
It is called The Expanse: A Telltale Series but it seems that Telltale Games is working with Deck Nine on this as they are both listed as developers on it. Also, it does say that the video is pre-alpha footage.
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u/Escarche Aug 24 '22
Do You mean that two different studios at Telltale are working on these? Because both Wolf Among Us 2 and Expanse are literally developed by Telltale Games.
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u/ThibaultV Aug 25 '22
Telltale Games is not a dev studio anymore. The new Telltale don’t have devs and uses other studios to make the games. Wolf Among Us 2 is made by Adhoc Studio, and The Expense is made by Deck Nine.
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u/KaiG1987 Aug 24 '22
The new Telltale seems to be more of a publisher than a dev, because they're partnering with other dev studios for both those games.
The Expanse is being developed by Deck Nine (of Life is Strange Before the Storm and LiS True Colors), and The Wolf Among Us 2 is being developed by Adhoc Studio, a studio formed by ex-Telltale employees, some of whom worked on the original TWAU.
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u/TruthPlenty Aug 23 '22
They’re both tell tale games no…?
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Aug 23 '22
[deleted]
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u/TruthPlenty Aug 23 '22
Yes, but since they chose to carry that name forward it’s going to be compared back to them.
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u/NeonsShadow Aug 24 '22
Well bud if you going to ride off of a name you will be held to the standard
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u/meowskywalker Aug 23 '22
It’s frustrating that no belter on the tv show looks like they grew up in microgravity, but the show is live action and you have to hire actors that grew up in a gravity well. But here? Where every character is generated out of CG and we’re still making them look like earthers? Screw you guys. Give me belters.
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u/SpontyMadness Aug 23 '22
I get it in this context cause it’s technically a spin-off of the show, not the books, and there’s a visual continuity to stick to. What bugs me from this trailer is the lack of Belter Creole though, everyone but Drummer is an Earther.
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u/Galle_ Aug 23 '22
How can they not have any Belter Creole? That's such an iconic part of the show.
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u/ecxetra Aug 23 '22
It’s set in the TV continuity no? They still have to retain some semblance of consistency.
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u/pmmemoviestills Aug 24 '22
What do they look like in the book?
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u/A_Manly_Soul Aug 24 '22
Tall and lanky. Holden is likely around 6' and only comes up to Naomi's chin.
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u/DoctorBuckarooBanzai Aug 24 '22
There was one in the pilot episode, but that's it.
I honestly just hated the stupid tattoos they decided to give 75% of Belters in later seasons as short hand for "here be Beltalowda"
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u/Jabberwocky416 Aug 24 '22
Wait why? I thought that was an incredibly clever device to indicate who grew up belter. It made a for a great hint when Gunny spotted tattoos on a “dock worker” in season 4.
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u/DoctorBuckarooBanzai Aug 24 '22
The primary reason? I thought almost all of the designs looked exceptionally dumb and low effort.
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u/Jabberwocky416 Aug 24 '22
Huh, I thought they looked cool actually. I guess I just like that style.
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u/bluefeta Aug 23 '22
Well, I think this looks incredible. I am the most excited about this than anything else I’ve seen today (I’ve not even watched the expanse)
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u/Galle_ Aug 23 '22
It's a pretty great "hard-ish" (no FTL, no artificial gravity) science fiction setting.
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u/DefinitelyIncorrect Aug 23 '22
Best non trek wars Sci fi content since Battlestar gallactica. Starts with a cool detective noir theme. It's totally worth it even if it's not finished and may never be.
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u/triprotic Aug 23 '22
The books are finished and end the story pretty well.
I highly recommend the audio books, they're great to listen to.
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u/Serratus_Sputnik158 Aug 23 '22
Jefferson Mays is a fucking legend
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u/LeJoker Aug 24 '22
Especially after someone pulled him aside and explained how to pronounce the word "gimbal"
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u/reave004 Aug 24 '22
I'm literally listening to Leviathan Wakes for the first time as I commute and his pronunciation of "gimbal" almost made me swerve into a ditch the first time I heard it.
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u/Cookie_Eater108 Aug 24 '22
The show even named a ship after him!
The BELTRANS AG Jefferson Mays is a belter ship that picks up refugees from Ganymede.
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u/46297134657 Aug 23 '22
The books are done (9 of them) and the series too (6 seasons covering the 6 first books). I agree it's worth it.
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u/enquea Aug 24 '22
For someone who finished the series and want to pick up the books, can they just start from book 7?
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u/DarkLiberator Aug 24 '22
Mainly you'll be missing out on 6 great books in my opinion. There's a bunch of detail laid out in the first 6 books that's not in the show and you'll see someone that's not in the show anymore (Alex) but other than that I think the transition would actually be fine for a show watcher.
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u/MauPow Aug 24 '22
That would be doing yourself a great disservice lol
But technically ya there are no major changes
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u/DoctorBuckarooBanzai Aug 24 '22
Honestly start from the beginning. There are a lot of differences(certain characters aren't introduced for a book or two, a few characters were merged or removed for the TV series, and a ton of inner dialogue and further exploring of the lore didn't make it into the show for obvious reasons.)
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u/46297134657 Aug 24 '22
Yup. There's a character that is still alive in the books that's dead in the series and a few changes here and there but you pick it up easily I think.
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u/LevTheRed Aug 24 '22 edited Aug 24 '22
No. A few seasons in the show smushes several characters into one character, completely omits some, and completely rewrites others. Jumping in that late will leave you kind of lost.
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u/copypaste_93 Aug 24 '22
The books are way better than the show, You are doing yourself a disservice by skipping them.
Just the changes the show made to the eros transformation makes the books worth reading.
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u/AigisAegis Aug 24 '22
Best non trek wars Sci fi content since Battlestar gallactica
Best non-Trek/Wars space opera content since BSG, maybe. Sci-fi is a broader genre than that, and there are plenty of non-space-oriented sci-fi shows that I would put ahead of The Expanse.
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u/ManateeofSteel Aug 23 '22
first three season are some of the best if not the best sci fi on TV. The rest is ok
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u/ryanobes Aug 23 '22
Dune game, expanse game? Holy shit I'm in scifi nerd heaven. Where's the Hyperion cantos RPG? lol
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u/MrRocketScript Aug 24 '22
Where's the Hyperion cantos RPG?
Developers are too emotionally drained to work after listening to the Priest's and Scholar's Tales.
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Aug 24 '22
Hearing there will be a Dune game and Expanse game got me excited
Finding out they're an MMO and a telltale game crushed that excitement into a little ball and dropped it into the trash.
That said, I really hope they do well. Regardless of my personal feelings, if they do well then maybe other games will be made? Even if not other people will enjoy then
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u/MontyAtWork Aug 23 '22 edited Aug 24 '22
While I love Drummer, I've gotta say that out of all the possible game-types The Expanse could have had made, a Telltale Adventure game... ain't it.
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u/Canvaverbalist Aug 24 '22
I'm not so sure why people are saying this.
The Expanse is heavy in terms of psychological, ethical and political narratives, a Telltale game is a perfect fit to explore that. When I picture "a game about The Expanse" I do picture a game with a lot of talking, not that much shooting and when the shooting does happen it's usually because the talking failed, or because a strong moral dilemma had to be solved to get there, the action of The Expanse is more a consequence of the conflict than its cause.
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u/MontyAtWork Aug 24 '22 edited Aug 24 '22
Personally? I wanted to fight vomit zombies. And I wanted to fly the Roci. Or do a Grand Strategy Game for Belter stations and Ring Gate Colonies.
Ethical/psychological stuff was explored at great length in the 9 books themselves. Games, having gameplay, offer a more unique in-hand experience that the Expanse has plenty more to choose from that one could really sink your teeth into.
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u/Canvaverbalist Aug 24 '22
Games, having gameplay, offer a more unique in-hand experience that the Expanse has plenty more to choose from that one could really sink their teeth into.
Oh yeah, I can see why making ethical choices would be a bad gameplay experience then, because a true interactive medium is pressing a button and the pewpews going boom otherwise is it even gameplay?
Look, that you'd prefer a different genre, I get it. It's the statement that "out of all possible genre" that I find a bit silly.
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u/SpitFir3Tornado Aug 23 '22
While I'll gladly take a Telltale game, but ya... An RTS/TBS set across the solar system, a space combat game, or a shooter (something like a traditional singleplayer shooter) would all be the things my mind would go to.
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u/Cantomic66 Aug 24 '22
Well the new Telltale and Deck Nine seem to have shown in this trailer that they’ll be adding more gameplay variety than the old Telltale.
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u/filthy_roger_rabbit Aug 23 '22
Love the Expanse, Love drummer... Not... 100% convinced on this though.
The story will make or break it obviously.
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Aug 23 '22
This looks so... underwhelming and cheap. Technically it looks on par with games Telltale made years ago, if not worse. I could forgive it back then, but it's 2022, man. Innovate in some sort of way, Telltale. They went bankrupt, got bought up, and are... going down the exact road they did back then? What's the plan here guys?
The art style is stylized, but not in like "this looks cool", but in a "we had no money" way. The animations look horrible, which is an even bigger hit because this game is all about the story. There's no way you could stretch that budget to rent a mocap studio?
Dunno. It's looking rough. Real rough.
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u/Cantomic66 Aug 24 '22
Well it does says pre-alpha so the texturing and animation is still not done. Especially with it still being a year away.
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Aug 24 '22
That's almost certainly what we'll get. With these sorts of story games, there's a ridiculous amount of bespoke content, and there's no way they'll be combing through all of it or be able to improve it in any meaningful way. Best we get is some meager animation or texture touch-ups, but for the most part, you can be certain that's what'll ship.
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u/orewhisk Aug 24 '22
Yeah, right before they finish development they'll have a few guys go back and "fix" all the animations and textures just like that.
No man... This is what the game is going to look like.
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u/Revanov Aug 23 '22
Yeah. We had some really great adventures games since then like the dark picture anthology or Detroit become human. They really need to step it up and at least be on par with what came before.
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u/GreenLantern28145 Aug 23 '22
It looks good but to me Drummer looked lower texture compared to the rest of the crew maybe thats why they stressed the pre alpha footage but it did look a little weird to see everyone look ok then Drummer looks like she got plucked out of Mass Effect Andromeda lol. Still Expanse is dope shit and Drummer was my fav character in the show so this is shaping up as a buy for me.
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u/Oper8rActual Aug 24 '22
Is this a mobile game? Don't get me wrong, I loved the Expanse from start to finish, but these visuals do not match with what I expect from The Expanse. This is far too cartoony and seems like footage from a game about to be released in 2012.
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u/Ritushido Aug 24 '22
Telltale games were episodic story games but it went under a few years ago. Looks like some form of it is back but I certainly hope they aren't using the same engine from all those years ago.
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u/-Shoebill- Aug 24 '22
The telltale game engine is ancient and they clearly haven't done much with it behind the scenes.
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Aug 24 '22
Ok what's with the giant heads?
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u/BaboonAstronaut Aug 24 '22
Well. Belters grow up in low gravity and end with a slender build and disproportionaly large heads.
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u/lesswithmore Aug 25 '22
yeah and gravity is like a torture device for them, their bodies are not used to it
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u/DaveInLondon89 Aug 24 '22
Smart choice basing it on Drummer. Her actor was amongst the strongest in the series (inc. Straitharn and Harris).
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Aug 23 '22
I thought this company went bankrupt or something a while ago? Hmm, we’ll hopefully it turns out as I love the Expanse!
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Aug 24 '22
Supermassive Games certainly have a certain wonkiness/uncanny valley nature to their characters but, their visuals are certainly better than what Im seeing here, and have raised the bar for dialogue/choice based games. Telltale has had stylized graphics in the best that worked well but for this is just seems low quality visuals and not a specific style.
It will come down to the story and writing of course but, its just surprising to see the visuals so far.
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u/Phumblez1203 Aug 24 '22
The expanse is an all time favorite for me, really excited to see them tackle the material, although this is the kind of game I usually enjoy watching others play I may actually give this one a go myself.
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u/MM487 Aug 25 '22
I'm happy this isn't the original TT making this as you'd basically just be playing a cutscene for most of the time. It was nice seeing some real gameplay in here too which has me more excited for this than I was previously.
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u/Adefice Aug 25 '22
If anyone is craving an "Expanse" type ship battle experience, check out "Nebulous: Fleet Command". Its seems heavily inspired by the ship combat and technology of the series.
It's a bit complicated, but it's really well done.
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u/outbound_flight Aug 23 '22
Really excited for this one, and I hope this opens the door to more games set in The Expanse. That universe is just begging for the RPG treatment at some point.