Game of Thrones episode 3: The Sword in the Darkness (Xbox One) Review

The latest episode of Telltale’s Game of Thrones series starts bringing it all together.

Warning: There will be spoilers for episodes 1, 2 and a couple for 3 (oh, and a few for the TV show too, if you’re not caught up).

The Telltale GoT series has been heated since it began, but finally things are starting to come together. Episode three takes place in season four of the HBO television series, a few days before and the day of King Joffrey’s death. Coincidentally, I haven’t been able to watch Game of Thrones since the Red Wedding, so everything that happens in this episode was completely new to me (except the death of Joffrey, that I knew was coming).

The episode picks up with Asher, his uncle Malcolm, and Beskha stuck between the Lost Legion and a hard place. Dehydrated, and nearly out of water, they begin looking for water in a small cave, and what they find inside is a bit hotter than the desert outside: Drogon. That’s right, at some point ol’ Daenerys lost her dragon (I say that like that’s something in the show, but as I said earlier, I haven’t watched past the Red Wedding, so I honestly don’t know), and it stumbled right into a small cave in the middle of a desolate wasteland… mmhm. I understand the story has to move forward, some way or another, but that seems pretty improbable to me.

One, two, skip a few, and we find ourselves taking control of Gared Tuttle, who is finally taking the black. Jon Snow makes you promise not to cause trouble with your ‘brothers’, which includes the troublemaker Finn; however, while I won’t spoil anything here, by the end of the episode, Finn is the least of your worries.

Following Gared, you jump over to Mira, who is in deep with Margaery if you made the same choices I did. In episode two I thought it would be a good idea to humiliate her, and swear allegiance to Joffrey. At the time I thought that would do a better job at saving House Forester, but it seems when dealing with Margaery, things really have a way of biting back.

Most of the major decisions lie with Rodrick in Episode 3 though. It seems Gryff Whitehill (Lord Whitehill’s son) is moving into Ironwrath to stay, and I can honestly say, it’s been a long time since I’ve had such burning hatred for a character… even by Game of Thrones’ standards. Many of the decisions revolve around biding your time, and biting your tongue.

Now that I’m finished with the story, I’m going to give a passing message on the graphics. And yes, I understand I complain about them every episode, and no I don’t expect them to really change, but… seriously does everything other than the main characters need to be so blurry that whatever it is is unrecognizable?

Final Thoughts

Alright, slight graphical grumps aside, the story is finally building, this episode wasn’t *as* entertaining as last, but it’s still pretty good, and I’m excited to see where it goes with episode 4.