With Black Friday week coming up, we have a slow week of new game releases, although there's at least one bigger release this week (on Steam), compared to all the other games. This week's biggest release has something to do with asteroids and space ships. This is followed by time loops, fewer words, strange syllables, ninjas and co-op backrooms. Make what you want of that, but it's what's on offer this coming week.

The Expanse: A Telltale Series / This week's major release / Monday 20 November
Experience the exciting universe of The Expanse like never before in Telltale's latest adventure, The Expanse: A Telltale Series. Take on the role of Camina Drummer and explore the dangerous and uncharted edges of the Belt aboard the Artemis. From scavenging wrecked ships in a zero-g environment, to surviving a mutiny, to combating fearsome pirates, you make the difficult choices and reveal Camina Drummer's resolve in this latest Telltale adventure.

Camina Drummer has a few problems: Her spaceship is running out of fuel. Her medic is hiding a dark secret. And there's an asteroid headed their way. But that's just another day on The Artemis. In The Expanse: A Telltale Series, Drummer's problems are your problems. If you know her from the television show of the same name, you know she's strong-willed and loyal, with the kind of fierce temperament suited to space exploration. But here, in Telltale's first new game in five years, you get to make the decisions. And your crew—and the game—is paying attention. Episodic narratives are making a comeback. With them returns a style of game that is uniquely suited both to the video game medium and our present moment.

Today's release is the first of five to be rolled out over the next two months. The planned schedule is very much in line with prestige TV: Each episode will be between sixty and ninety minutes, and by the end you'll have witnessed a full narrative arc for this "eccentric crew," as Game Director Stephan Frost describes Drummer and her cohorts. But what makes episodic games so exciting and different from episodic television is the obvious fact that you don't just get one narrative, of course. You get yours, as you decide how and when to make certain decisions, with each plotline breaking off down multiple paths and crisscrossing across many story nodes. Sometimes this means you get to take down the leader of a doomsday cult with either force or subterfuge, as in HITMAN: World of Assassination; sometimes this means running into a burning building and risking the life of a trusted friend who runs in after you, as in The Walking Dead: Michonne.