Review: Game of Thrones S1E1: “Iron From Ice”

Game of Thrones makes a lot of sense for Telltale. An interesting world ripe with the moral quandaries their games have become known for since 2012’s The Walking Dead, it is also an ideal property to draw in new players as Telltale’s formula for adventure games works best when experienced for the first time. As a veteran of The Walking Dead and The Wolf Among Us, I’m starting to see the strings, and the cracks.

Fans of the show and books will get the most out of “Iron from Ice”, I can’t fathom dropping into the middle of this universe and not being completely overwhelmed. Based specifically in the canon of the show, “Iron From Ice” takes place in the wake of season three’s Red Wedding and follows the Forresters, a minor northern house that are bannermen to the Starks. The Forresters also make for a convincing replica of the Starks; a stoic leader, brave first son, King’s Landing bound, proper first daughter, and a more eccentric group of younger children. Being both a Telltale game and a Song of Ice and Fire story, they also suffer plenty of the hardships and tragedy we come to expect from both.

“Iron from Ice” spends a lot of time letting players know the lay of the land while sneaking in some surprises and drama. Most of the episode takes place in the Forresters home of Ironrath, where they await in dread a visit from Ramsay Snow. Their background with rival house Whitehill is established, characters are introduced and cameos are made by a variety of show characters such as Tyrion, Cersei and Margaery Tyrell. Some of the exposition is a little slow but the big moments make up for it and the QTE sections are brief but well done. It follows the Telltale formula to the letter, most of the game takes place in dialogue choices (I found the option to say nothing at all more useful here than in other Telltale games) with some brief wandering around and action scenes interspersed. It doesn’t take any risks or make any innovations, relying on the setting and characters to drive the game. Telltale is faithful both to Game of Thrones and their own formula, for better and worse.

This is very much a Telltale game, your choices matter more to your own personal sense of the characters than they influence the story. There are a couple of scenes that differ or you may not see depending on your choices and some will have ramifications down the line but the big moments will happen regardless of your input. First time players will be swept up believing they could have done things differently but veterans of Telltale’s post The Walking Dead games will see through the formula straight away and it will be up to their ability to accept the illusion of choice how much they can get out of the game. “Iron from Ice” also throws some tricks in with its ‘will remember that’ cues, they can’t be relied on to indicate important moments like they did in The Walking Dead, but they do add some texture to the interactions.

The Telltale engine can no longer be excused for its technical deficiencies. This is a large studio juggling a lot of projects that should be able to do better. Here the character animations range from stilted to laughable, the engine does a good job with expressive eyes but characters run like their ankles are tied together with a metre of rope and the animation transitions in conversation are often jarring. Subtitles and spoken dialogue often don’t match, with the subs sometimes rapidly skipping through lines of text that are never spoken. The filter used to give the graphics their painted style often makes itself obvious as characters walk from background to foreground or as the camera pans over scenery. Transitions between scenes can feel sudden, though this is often as much the direction as the engine. While the voice work is top notch and the hand painted look an interesting take on Telltale’s trademark style, the technical package is lacking and what we could forgive in The Walking Dead Season One is not acceptable two years later. I also encountered some minor framerate issues on the Xbox One, and despite linking a Telltale account and playing through the game twice, I never got to see the ‘what choices did people make’ post game stats screen.

Yet “Iron from Ice” did suck me in and I am looking forward to seeing where the season goes. The big moment got the same reaction out of me some of the best moments in the show do and I enjoy the Telltale formula enough to want to keep going. There are technical issues in their games that Telltale needs to address sooner rather than later, but in “Iron from Ice” the greater story outshines them.

Game of Thrones Season 1 Episode 1: “Iron From Ice” was reviewed using a retail copy of the game on Xbox One, purchased by the reviewer.

• Review: Game of Thrones S1E1: 'Iron From Ice'