'Reigns: Game of Thrones' lets you write your own Season 8
This might be controversial, but I believe the best ruler to keep Westeros safe and protected is actually Cersei Lannister.
That's my big takeaway after spending hours swiping left and right on the big decisions in Reigns: Game of Thrones. The partnership between HBO and Devolver Digital is coming to Android/iOS and PC this October, and it is very much a Choose-Your-Own-Game-Of-Thrones-Adventure.
First, a little background on Reigns. The mobile-born strategy game and its Her Majesty follow-up operate under a simple yet engaging premise: What if the complex socio-political mechanics of ruling an entire kingdom worked like Tinder?
Reigns presents you with a series of cards that each feature one of the many figures you interact with as a ruler: advisers, courtesans, spies, enemy generals, the whole deal. Most cards are accompanied by some kind of dilemma for you to preside over or decision to make.
You move things forward by swiping left or right on each card, which seals your choice (you can preview each option by half-swiping in either direction before you commit). Most of your decisions influence a set of four meters, each of which relate to the power held in different corners of your kingdom: Military, religion, commonfolk, and wealth.
Your goal as you play is to keep the four meters in a relative balance. Let any one of them fill up or empty out completely and it's game over. But there's always a reason to dive back in after losing; your progress leads to new sets of cards being unlocked, and those offer new stories and characters.
Reigns: Game of Thrones does more than just run with that idea -- which, let's be honest, already lends itself very well to the Westeros setting! The new game picks up in the aftermath of HBO's Season 7, so you're basically charting your own Season 8 with each card swipe.
More than that though, the whole game is framed as a thought exercise presided over by the Red Priestess herself, Melisandre. When we last left the Westeros of the HBO series, Cersei held the Iron Throne while Daenerys and Jon Snow worked to shut down the threat of the White Walkers.
In Reigns: Game of Thrones, you decide where all the bodies are buried.
In Melisandre's version of events, all the big moments of Season 7 and earlier still happened: The Great Sept of Baelor is a pile of rubble, Viserion the dragon is an undead terror, and the Iron Fleet is a force to be reckoned with. But the person who actually leads from the Iron Throne is your choice to make.
Only Dany is unlocked at first, but the more you play -- and the more you complete various challenges like "Hear a Knight's oath" or "Discover Littlefinger's legacy" -- the more possible rulers are unlocked. It's characters you know and love, too. Tyrion Lannister, Sansa Stark, and yes, Cersei herself are all among the nine playable queens and kings.
Just like the other Reigns games, there's an element of randomness in each play session. You might face a pitched battle against Dorne right away in your first outing as Queen Cersei, but then broker widespread peace across the land in your next playthrough.
Completing challenges, then, is largely a product of luck and a growing familiarity with the story threads that each card tugs on. This isn't a game you get good at; it's a series of sewn-together Game of Thrones stories that are shaped by your decisions from top to bottom.
The more you play, the more story you unlock; and the more you unlock, you more options you have in each new story. Most of those efforts will end in your horrible death. But that's the promise of the show realized in game form, isn't it? As the tagline goes: When you play the game of thrones, you win or you die.
Reigns: Game of Thrones ($3.99) puts you in a position of power, letting you decide where all the bodies are buried in Westeros. Look for it in the iOS App Store, Google Play, and PC via Steam sometime in October.
Topics Game Of Thrones Gaming HBO
Adam Rosenberg is a Senior Games Reporter for Mashable, where he plays all the games. Every single one. From AAA blockbusters to indie darlings to mobile favorites and browser-based oddities, he consumes as much as he can, whenever he can.Adam brings more than a decade of experience working in the space to the Mashable Games team. He previously headed up all games coverage at Digital Trends, and prior to that was a long-time, full-time freelancer, writing for a diverse lineup of outlets that includes Rolling Stone, MTV, G4, Joystiq, IGN, Official Xbox Magazine, EGM, 1UP, UGO and others.Born and raised in the beautiful suburbs of New York, Adam has spent his life in and around the city. He's a New York University graduate with a double major in Journalism and Cinema Studios. He's also a certified audio engineer. Currently, Adam resides in Crown Heights with his dog and his partner's two cats. He's a lover of fine food, adorable animals, video games, all things geeky and shiny gadgets.
