Video Games Review: Game of Thrones: A Telltale Games Series – Episode 5: A Nest of Vipers (PC, 2015)

A Nest of Vipers is the fifth and penultimate episode of Telltale’s Game of Thrones adventure game and uses its time wisely, placing all four of the disaster-prone Forrester children where they need to be in preparation for the finale.

With Rodrik Forrester ready to make a deal for his brother Ryon’s life, Ramsay Snow has returned to deliver an ultimatum – capitulate or die in agony. It seems that war will finally be on his doorstep in a few short weeks but he still needs time to prepare. He also needs time for his far flung siblings to come through for him.

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Mira is still reeling from the explosive results of her sneaking into the party and must now deal with the fallout. Margaery is furious with her, her fellow handmaidens are now rebuking her for their own safety and now she’s caught the attention of Queen Cersei once again. Cersei has a task for Mira and the complete it, she’ll need to deal with the master of spin and suspicion himself, Tyrion Lannister.

Despite the fact that Asher’s raid on Meereen for Daenerys Targaryen was completed the way she requested, it wasn’t quite as to-the-letter as the notoriously bossy queen would have liked. Asher and Beskha are left without much of a choice – assemble an army now or don’t go back to Westeros at all. To do this, Asher will have to put his life on the line once again, risking everything he’s got to complete his task.

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Gared, meanwhile, is still on the run from the Night’s Watch and must now find a way to keep not only the Wildlings happy but his comrades as well. The North Grove still eludes him but as he grows closer and hears more of its legend, they find themselves beset on all sides by a rather large problem: White Walkers.

A Nest of Vipers felt like the most organised episode of this series Telltale have released so far. In spite of its job being to get all of Telltale’s proverbial ducks in a row for Episode 6, it manages to smartly walk the line between action and story without pushing too far in either direction and is able to stand on its own as one of the series’ most solid episodes.

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To match the brisk pace of the story, there’s plenty of action this time around as well with Gared, Rodrik and Asher all getting into tussles throughout. There’s more quick time events in this one episode that perhaps in any episode so far, let’s put it that way. Mira’s story continues to be one of the more intriguing and having to deal with Cersei again is bowel-looseningly stressful. One wrong word with that woman and you wont have time to regret it. Tyrion, too, presents a conversational challenge all of his own. Trying to have a conversation with a Lannister – any Lannister it seems – is to perform a verbal joust rather than a physical one.

With enemies closing in on the Forresters from all sides, the game sets the stage for the final episode by asking you to make one of the most important decisions in the story to date. It will likely be a month or two before we see the next episode arrive and with it the end of the series. If A Nest of Vipers is anything to go by, the finale is going to be a big one indeed.

Review Score: 8.0/10
Highlights: Smart storytelling; clever dialogue
Lowlights: A few clunky animation transitions here and there
Developer: Telltale Games
Publisher: Telltale Games
Released: July 22, 2015
Platform: PlayStation 4, Xbox One, PC, PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, iOS, Android

Reviewed on PC

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David Smith

David Smith is the former games and technology editor at The AU Review. He has previously written for PC World Australia. You can find him on Twitter at @RhunWords.