“Iron From Ice” ~ The Motto of House Forrester

Those of you who are waiting desperately for Game of Thrones season 5 can find comfort in the scintillating and bloody Telltale Game of Thrones series’ introductory episode titled “Iron From Ice.” This new series from the makers of The Walking Dead, The Wolf Among Us, and the very recent Tales From the Borderlands will have a six episode run versus the usual Telltale five, and so far has done a flawless job capturing the majesty and desolation from HBO’s series based off of George R. R. Martin’s universe. The original characters in the game are tragic and memorable, and the use of the cast from the HBO series (including their original voices) is pulled off remarkably. Choices you make in the game are difficult as you’re often faced with decisions that force you to confront harsh realities, and like the source material from which its based, characters will be profoundly affected. The game is a fitting homage to the television series while at the same time being completely original. Telltale is to be commended, and this is just the beginning.

The game picks up at the end of season 3 of the HBO show, and will run concurrent to events leading up to the beginning of season 5, so while major spoilers from the game will be avoided in this review, be aware that events and characters from the show will be touched upon in this and subsequent episode reviews.

Telltale’s Game of Thrones is centred around members of House Forrester, a noble house from the series only briefly mentioned by Martin in his novels, who are banner-men to the Starks. Like the Starks themselves, a series of grave misfortunes affect the fortunes of the house, starting with an exciting QTE-filled sequence at the beginning of “Iron From Ice” set during an infamous event from the end of season 3 of the show *cough*redwedding*cough* during which Lord Forrester is slain. Having lost the protection of the Starks and with its leader dead, House Forrester is faced with numerous challenges as the young and inexperienced Ethan takes up the lordship of the house just as they are being forced to swear allegiance to King Joffrey via the new wardens of the North, The Boltons. Meanwhile House Forrester’s sworn enemies, House Whitehill, are trying to get their hands on Forrester’s precious ironwood, and both the Whitehills and the Boltons are frothing at the bit that a squire from House Forrester who was present at the Red Wedding, Gared, had slain some of their men. Sound complicated? Welcome to Game of Thrones.

The gameplay involves you exploring and interacting with objects and people in the environment by clicking on objects, selecting replies in conversations and making decisions, and QTE-based combat. Telltale has balanced this out nicely, and while the combat was limited in this episode, we can expect to see a lot more in the future. This may sound thin, but for those of you unfamiliar with Telltale’s games, they’re fairly narrative based and the satisfaction in their product is in their extremely well-crafted stories and the emotional impact of decisions you are forced to make in the game.

In this first episode you control three different characters from House Forrester: The squire Gerad, who was present when Lord Forrester was slain, Ethan, the new lord of House Forrester, and Mira, a handmaiden to Margaery Tyrell at King’s Landing. Through each of their eyes you gain a different perspective of the events occurring in the story, and the decisions made by each character will affect the situations faced by the others.

All three scenarios are interesting in their own right for different reasons. Gerad, who had just been promoted by Lord Forrester prior to his death, gets the lion’s share of the QTE-based combat in this episode, and is forced to face consequences for his just actions which are unfair and out of his control. Ethan must make a slew of decisions on how to best uphold his House’s good name and how to deal with both the arrival of Ramsay Bolton and the Whitehills, while navigating the advice from other members of his house including his mother Lady Elissa, his twin sister Talia, his Uncle Duncan, and Master-At-Arms Royland. He also has a little brother to protect named Ryon for good measure. Mira, meanwhile, has to try to help her house by navigating the quagmire of politics in the capital by trying to sway her charge Margaery to assist, while also dealing with Cersei’s and Tyrion’s various intrigues. This is all just in episode one, which clocks in at approximately two hours and thirty minutes.

As always is the case in Telltale games, the choices you make in “Iron and Ice” not only affect outcomes in this episode, but will affect the rest of the episodes in the series as well in ways you can’t always anticipate. Regardless of what choices you make, however, there are limits to what you can prevent as certain outcomes will always be the same no matter what choices you make, no matter how smart you play it. Still, in the moment, each choice feels important, and like in The Walking Dead there is a horrible feeling of hopelessness in many of the decisions you are forced to make at someone’s expense. As more episodes launch it will become more clear how certain decisions made will affect the rest of the narrative.

   Verdict

It’s difficult to review a story-centric game without giving too much away, but rest assured that with this new series and its introductory episode “Iron From Ice” Telltale has managed to make Game of Thrones come to life in a truly interactive way. No longer able to sit passively and watch horrible situations play out, you become part of the decisions that drive the characters from the series to commit such audacious, horrible, and yet sometimes merciful acts. The game looks gorgeous, capturing the look of the show perfectly and rendering the actors tremendously (though Margaery looks a bit blocky, weirdly, which distracted me), and having the actual actors play their characters from the show is a nice touch. The ending of this episode was a real shock to me, and has more than convinced me that this is going to be one hell of a ride. This is just the beginning.

Stay tuned to Gamer Headlines for reviews of subsequent episodes as they are released.