As a massive lover of all things space, I was thrilled to finally get my hands on the first chapter of The Expanse: A Telltale Series. Telltale made its name by delivering an authentic take on The Walking Dead at a time when the franchise was at the height of its popularity. The team working on The Expanse is different from the old Telltale--the studio has partnered with Deck Nine, developers of Life is Strange: True Colors, giving The Expanse series a good chance of hitting the narrative highs it needs to. Gameplay, however, initially had me a little worried. The upcoming sci-fi adventure gives players much more physical freedom than the studio's previous offerings, allowing them to roam, run, and float through zero-g environments and explore at their leisure--a potentially daunting task from a technical perspective. Although The Expanse's enormous universe offers plenty of material for great storytelling, the game could easily become messy if not handled with care.

With fan-favorite Camina Drummer as its main character, The Expanse: A Telltale Series is already in a great position from a narrative perspective. Both studios have created immersive, stunning games over the years, but The Expanse is new territory for Telltale when it comes to both gameplay and story. The game sees a beloved character from a visually stunning sci-fi franchise with firmly established lore get a prequel to fill in her sparse backstory--a concept that certainly holds promise. After diving into the first episode of the game itself and speaking to some of its creators, it seems Telltale is thoroughly committed to telling Drummer's backstory in a way that will please fans of both the books and the television series.

"At every level of the team, everyone cares about story first," Deck Nine art director Emerson Oaks told me. "We're super focused on telling the story, respecting the characters, and making the game as good as we can within those boundaries. That's the kind of lens that [the narrative team] is looking at the game through."