The first season of Telltale’s Game of Thrones focuses on the plight of the noble House Forrester. The small, but important, family tasked with supplying the kingdom’s ironwood falls into dark times as it becomes embroiled in the political fallout of the infamous Red Wedding. Rotating between five members of the Forrester household spread across Westeros and beyond, players are tasked with keeping House Forrester from being wiped out by the scheming Whitehills and their backer, Ramsey Snow. The first episode proves incredibly effective at illustrating this premise while also introducing all of the main cast and their individual plot threads. We have Gared Tuttle, a squire to Lord Forrester who hears the nobleman's cryptic last words that send him on a journey to the Wall and beyond. In their darkest hour, the Forrester family sends for the exiled Asher Forrester who has become a mercenary across the Narrow Sea. Stranded in King’s Landing, the political heart of Westeros, Mira Forrester plays a dangerous game to protect her house from afar. In the absence of his father and elder brothers, Ethan Forrester must put aside his childhood in order to keep the Forrester keep of Ironrath from falling into devious hands. Gravely wounded and presumed dead, Rodrik, the eldest son of the Forrester clan creeps back home to prevent almost certain disaster. These various plot threads weave together to form a narrative that is at turns compelling and frustrating.

While cutting between the diverse cast of characters certainly provides an interesting dynamic that other Telltale series lack, it sometimes felt more like a gimmick than a genuine asset. This feels particularly true of episodes two through four which seems to have certain characters treading water while more interesting things happen elsewhere. Writing diverse storylines and characters can be incredibly difficult, but because of the dead air in those episodes the momentum of the story slows to a crawl. For example, we seem to spend an awful lot of time with Mira in King’s Landing as she tries to make allies, but the payoff for that time often feels unrelated to what actions were taken during the time we were with her. That time could have been spent building relationships between other characters, bolstering the importance of player decisions. That isn’t to say that Mira doesn’t have important things to do during the six episode series, but rather sometimes the story seems to be subservient to the format instead of the reverse.

That isn’t to say that there aren’t really awesome moments in Telltale’s Game of Thrones. Choosing to defiantly stand up to the Whitehills; guiding Mira through a delicate dinner party to successfully uncover an infernal plot against the Forrester family; and the heartrending climax of episode six are some of the best written moments in Telltale’s catalog. Those moments really work and feel equal parts Telltale at the height of its powers and Game of Thrones offering its mix of honor, duty, and backstabbery.