(The following article contains some spoilers from Telltale Games’s Game of Thrones series)

Ever since their first season of The Walking Dead, Telltale Games has been primarily known as the company that specializes in narrative-heavy, choice-driven games. While familiarity with their formula has led to slightly diminishing returns, and none of their recent titles have packed the emotional punch that the first season of their Walking Dead series did, they have been consistently entertaining and unique. The Wolf Among Us was a cool comic-based neo-noir fantasy piece, tied to the existing “Fables” property but also perfectly suited to the uninitiated. Tales from the Borderlands has nailed its parent series’ style and sense of humor, while crafting a story and cast of characters with a lot more complexity than its shooter-siblings would allow. Even the second season of The Walking Dead, while paling in comparison to the first, did a generally strong job of balancing player choice with a pre-ordained story.

However, four episodes in, their Game of Thrones series appears to be their first major misstep. This is for several reasons, but two stand out in particular. First is that, on a conceptual level, Game of Thrones was destined to run into trouble. Unlike The Walking Dead and Tales from the Borderlands, which utilize different sets of characters than their source material, and The Wolf Among Us, which is a prequel to the main series, Game of Thrones takes place during the same time period as the fourth season of the show. It also utilizes many of the same characters. The central families involved, the Forresters and the Whitehills, are inventions for the game, but are frequently interacting with characters whose fates are set in stone.

The problem here is that the player has a different set of information than the characters involved. So, for instance, when Tyrion proposes a deal to Mira Forrester (the family member who is a handmaiden in Margaery Tyrell’s employ), we know making deals with Tyrion mere days before Joffrey’s wedding is a terrible idea. Mira, on the other hand, does not. Other issues arise when characters from the TV series show up to menace the game’s characters. Ramsay Snow is a despicable enough character already, but since the game takes place during the events of a season in which we know he survives, the character is coated with the thickest of plot armor. When Ramsay kills a prominent character, it feels cheap, like playing against an opponent who’s operating in God Mode.

The bigger issue, though, is that the Game of Thrones series railroads players to a degree that severely undermines the experience. Take, for instance, that first Ramsay appearance. As Ethan Forrester, you could appeal to Ramsay in absolutely every way, completely avoiding any conflict. He’s still going to stab you in the neck. The same thing happens if you fight him. You’re too bold either way.

The same kind of frustrations occur at The Wall, especially in episodes 3 and 4. Gared Tuttle is a member of the Night’s Watch after killing a man who threatened him and killed his father. At the wall, he runs into another character who was responsible for killing his father. Jon Snow warns Gared that, despite his inclinations and any injustice, he must stick to his vows as a member of the Night’s Watch. They are all brothers now.

So, when your father’s killer confronts you at the top of the wall, you have some “choices,” and I opted to listen to Jon Snow and stick to my vows. I did everything possible not to fight the guy, but I had to fight him anyway. Then, when given the option to kill him, I chose not to. There was only one eyewitness to the situation, and it was a character who I had won over, so I should have been set. But my enemy died anyway, and despite my protestations, the upcoming battle against wildlings and giants, and an eyewitness testimony saying that I didn’t kill the guy, the Night’s Watch decided to condemn me to death. All this because the game needed me to break my oath and head north, and it didn’t have any contingency stories to do so.

At other times, you cannot even progress the storyline until you do exactly what the game wants, even if that thing is something you would personally never attempt. In episode 4, Mira Forrester has to sneak into King Tommen’s coronation to find out which King’s Landing politicians are in the Whitehills’s pockets. You are warned repeatedly that this is a dangerous thing, and that anything you say and do will be seen and heard by the rest of King’s Landing. I was cautious, going around and eavedropping on conversations from safe distances, but the game ultimately forces you to go and talk to a Lannister character and manipulate him into a fight with another character. It’s completely lacking in subtlety, and is destined to put a target on Mira’s back, but is completely unavoidable in the game for purely mechanical reasons.

Eventually, you just give in and decide that the story is going to do the same thing regardless of your decisions, so you might as well be a badass about it. Back in the Forrester’s hometown of Ironrath, crippled leader Rodrik Forrester is constantly being beaten and humiliated by the Whitehills, who have been given power over your family by Ramsay Snow. If you’re submissive, you’re endlessly mocked. If you’re aggressive, then you’re beaten and then endlessly mocked. Different characters will be happy or upset depending on your approach, but none of it has any real effect. If a scene means for you to “lose,” you’ll lose. If you’re meant to have a minor victory, you’ll have it. Characters will never live or die because of your actions, so you might as well stand up for yourself.

The characters, too, are often lacking the same complexity found in the book and TV series. The Whitehills, for instance, are just as  one-note evil as Ramsay and Joffrey, but worse characters. At least Ramsay has the inferiority complex derived from his status as a bastard, and Joffrey is driven by the worst kind of entitlement. The Whitehills are only awful because the story demands that they be awful.

It’s not enough that they’re competing with the Forresters to sell their ironwood. They also have to be unceasingly shitty about it. They insult the Forresters every chance they get, try to trample all over their personal property, and essentially kidnap their youngest family member. Meanwhile, the Whitehill daughter that Rodrik grew up with is trying to convince him to be kind to them, because her father is not the horrible man Rodrik thinks he is. In the next scene, that same father continues to berate Rodrik, threatens to take all of his ironwood, and holds a blade to Rodrik’s brother’s neck. Fuck peace, this guy has it coming.

Telltale Games’ Game of Thrones is a game that pretends to give you actual agency, but ultimately takes it away in service to a plot and set of characters that are not that interesting or well-defined anyway. It’s a shame, but also clearly a misstep. The fantastic, aforementioned Tales from the Borderlands is also currently in-season, so maybe this will be a learning opportunity for Telltale. Choice and narrative is already an extremely delicate balance in gaming, but when you limit choice to empower the narrative, the narrative better be able to hold up its end of the bargain.