Marvel's Guardians of the Galaxy: The Telltale Series

I went into this one expecting a breezy Marvel tie-in you finish and forget. What surprised me was how much emotional weight Telltale packed into the Eternity Forge premise. The relic sits at the center of all five episodes, and every Guardian has a personal reason to want it, pulling the team apart while Kree warrior Hala the Accuser hunts them across the galaxy. The through-line of grief and family bonds lands harder than the premise suggests, particularly in the flashback sequences exploring Peter Quill's relationship with his mother and, even more so, Rocket's dark backstory. Telltale structured each of the five episodes to spotlight a different Guardian's past, and when that device works, it works well. The gameplay is the classic Telltale package: point-and-click exploration, quick-time events during combat sequences, dialogue choices that shift relationships across the season, and enough light puzzle-solving in locations like Kree temples and Knowhere to feel like the team was at least gesturing back toward the studio's adventure-game roots. Star-Lord's jet boots add a vertical element in certain rooms where you can fly up to reach clues, which is a small but welcome touch. Choices carry more weight than they first appear. The branching paths become noticeably richer from episode three onward, and the outcome screen at the end of each episode makes you realize how much forking was happening behind the scenes. Nebula's arc is even player-shaped, with the possibility of nudging her toward the team depending on the calls you make. That said, the criticisms are real. The Telltale engine was showing its age in 2017 and the technical issues, including a persistent freeze bug that required a full game restart to clear, were not polished away post-launch. The writing is inconsistent. The first episode is a slow, slightly anticlimactic opener given that it front-loads the Thanos battle, and the final episode's big showdown feels underwhelmed compared to the mid-season peak. Playing as Star-Lord also creates an odd friction: he is a strongly defined character with an established MCU personality, which makes role-playing him feel less like sculpting a protagonist and more like trying on someone else's jacket. Some players will find that liberating, others will find it restrictive. The honest pitch is this: the series sits in the middle tier of Telltale's catalog, not as tight as The Walking Dead Season 1, not as funny as Tales from the Borderlands, but genuinely better than its mixed review scores suggest if you come at it on its own terms. Each episode runs roughly 90 minutes, meaning the full season is a single weekend commitment. For players who bounced off heavier narrative games but want something set in the Marvel cosmic space with real emotional beats, this is a solid option. Fans of the movies and comics who want a story that draws on both without being enslaved to either canon will find the most to enjoy here. Expect bugs, expect an unresolved cliffhanger Telltale never got to pay off, and set your combat expectations accordingly.

Alex · Scout Team

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