‘The Expanse: A Telltale Series’ Episode 2 review: Space Pirates galore!

Episode two of The Expanse builds off the strong opening episode.

Vish

August 16, 2023

Captain Camina Drummer? The looming threat of space pirates? Who is Toussaint Zapata? A new budding romance?! Episode two of Telltale’s The Expanse packs in action and new developments in spades.

In the tense opening minutes of the episode, Camina Drummer and her crew try to escape pirates after the epic cliffhanger of the previous episode saw her unexpectedly taking the role of Artemis captain from Garrison Cox. Now being responsible for her crew’s lives, the captaincy shapes Drummer’s development in interesting ways. Unlike Cox, she is very new to this dynamic and doesn’t want to let her crew down, which leads to dialogue choices where she asks for suggestions from her crew members rather than acting alone.

‘The Expanse: A Telltale Series’ Episode 2 — Drummer’s new role as captain shapes new dialogue choices.

After a narrow escape from the pirates, Drummer and her crew find themselves stranded in a ship’s grave, debris crowding their every movement. Episode two contains nothing new in terms of traversal mechanics. Mag boots and zero-g thrusters helped Drummer navigate through fallen debris of the Belter, MCRN, and UNN ships in order to find reaction mass. There are a few collectables I came across while exploring these ships. Some of these collectables can be given to your crew mates in order to increase their opinion of you, which might help later in The Expanse.

I also stumbled on two side quests which again were standard fetch quests for Drummer’s crewmates. These are quite fun to do but sometimes not being able to find items easily can leave you feeling frustrated. For instance, one of the side quests was finding medicine and it took me an annoyingly large chunk of time to explore the massive ship’s grave to get it. However, they are worth completing in the end as they unlock dialogue options with the crewmates to learn more about their past. I do hope the nature of these side quests changes in later episodes as repetitious fetch quests can grow dull.

There is a part later in the episode where Drummer has to evade pirate drones from spotting her, infusing a bit of stealth in the gameplay. Using the mag boots, Drummer can walk on walls, avoid the drones’ lights, and fly through clear spaces with the zero-g thrusters. This was a fun little challenging area that I enjoyed. It brought a nice change of pace by introducing the potential villain of the game, space pirate Toussaint Zapata. Even though we haven’t directly come into contact with her yet, this episode does a good job of highlighting her looming threat. Who is Toussaint? What is her deal? Will we ever see her in person? These are some of the questions that remain to be answered, but, so far, the game’s villain possesses a mysterious enigma that has grabbed my attention.

After Drummer’s brief conversation with Toussaint, she gets surrounded by space pirates who try to attack her. However, the game’s combat was once again just QTEs, leaving me somewhat cold. I had hoped players would take charge and The Expanse would include some third person shooting mechanics for Drummer. As said in my review of The Expanse episode one, I am not opposed to QTEs in a Telltale game, but I wish the developers would’ve tried something more engaging here.

My personal favorite element of this episode was Drummer and Maya’s (played by Isabel Chavez) relationship. Developer Deck Nine’s Life is Strange titles are famous for their queer romances, and Telltale games aren’t strangers to romance either. So it wasn’t surprising when The Expanse added some sexual tension between Drummer, a sapphic character as seen in the TV show, and Maya back in episode one.

In episode two, however, their relationship is evolving into something more. Their interactions felt more playful and flirty. Even though it is up to the players to choose how they respond to Maya’s playfulness, you can’t deny the adorable chemistry these two have through the story. Unable to deny their attraction towards each other, the one and only major choice towards the end of the episode was whether to pursue Maya’s invitation to a relationship. I don’t think I have made a quicker decision in my life because there was only one answer to me and that was to accept Maya’s invitation.

Having two sapphic women being represented in a game with no limitations might be the reason I enjoyed this episode. I look forward to seeing where Maya and Drummer’s relationship goes later in the series. Overall, episode two of Telltale’s The Expanse was better in terms of story than gameplay and I am all right with that. It gives more importance to Drummer’s character development as a captain and also as a person. Episode three of Telltale’s The Expanse is just about a week away, and I’m looking forward to continuing this adventure on the Artemis.