Vantage

The scope of this one is hard to argue with on paper, an open world co-op adventure with nearly eight hundred interconnected locations spread across four hundred cards, no campaign structure, fully self contained with no expansion required to get the whole experience. That’s a genuinely different pitch from most exploration games, which usually ration content out over a box of expansions you’re supposed to want later.

Where it lost a little steam for me is that after all that sprawl, what you’re actually building toward is just three stats, and the sense of long term progression I want from a game this size never quite showed up the way I hoped. I kept comparing it in my head to other dudes on a map style games, and my favorites in that lane usually pair the moment to moment opportunism with something you’re building across the whole session, here it felt more transient than that, good in the moment, thin in the aggregate.

Communicating across a scattered group while everyone explores their own corner of the planet is the actual hook, and it mostly works, there’s a real thrill in radioing a discovery back to a teammate on the far side of the map who’s been stuck on something you happen to have the answer for. Snacks and drinks at the table are no issue here, cards handle fine with a hand that isn’t perfectly clean, which I appreciate on a long session.

Advertised play time is honest enough that I won’t dock it for that, sessions ran roughly what the box promised rather than the usual quiet inflation. I’d call this a strong three, worth exploring once for the scale of what Stonemaier built, but I don’t think it’s replacing my go to co-op nights the way the hype suggested it might.