I resisted this one for a long time because the LCG model, buy the core set then keep buying expansion packs forever, felt like exactly the kind of hobby trap I try to avoid. I was right that it’s a trap. I was wrong that it’s not worth falling into.

The campaign structure is the whole appeal for me, your investigator carries scars, trauma, and gear from scenario to scenario across a whole story arc, and the game tracks consequences in a way that made me actually care whether my character survived a fight instead of shrugging it off as a reset. Deckbuilding between scenarios, deciding whether to keep the reliable card or gamble on the flashy new one you drew from the encounter deck, is genuinely some of the best solitaire-friendly design I’ve played, and it holds up just as well two-handed.

Card quality across a class is wildly uneven, seeker cards in particular feel like they were designed a full tier above some of the guardian options in the same box, which matters more than it should once you’re deep into deckbuilding and trying to make a themed character work. The rulebook also assumes a level of card-game literacy that a total newcomer won’t have, my first session teaching a friend took nearly two hours before we finished a single scenario.

What keeps me coming back is the horror atmosphere actually landing, the encounter deck can turn a good plan into a nightmare in one bad flip, and unlike a lot of “narrative” games the mechanical tension and the Lovecraft dread are pulling in the same direction instead of fighting each other.

Financially reckless as an ongoing commitment. As a card game that respects your investigator’s story across dozens of hours, five stars, no notes, ask me again after the next expansion drops.