Rebuilding after the Apocalypse

Phoenix New Horizon enchanted us at first sight with its spectacular cover art. But art isn’t enough alone of course, which is why we were delighted to find a super solid and satisfying game under the cover. 😁 The game is set in a post-apocalyptic world. ☢️ After a new technology is discovered named the ‘Phoenix Project’, humanity returns to the surface, building Regenerators to create habitats on the surface of Earth. Players each lead one of the factions striving to make history. 💪

This is a mid-weight euro for 1-4 players with worker placement as its primary mechanism, but with an innovative take! ☝️ There is a separate board for taking actions, divided into 4 tiers, all randomly filled with action tiles of the appropriate level at setup. On your turn you can either do a task with a worker on its current tier, or promote it to a higher tier. The way the tiers are divided and linked to each other limits your available action choices, so the decision of which route to take when promoting adds an interesting layer to the strategy. 

During the game one of the most important actions you are doing is placing Regenators ⚡ to different regions and gaining bonuses accordingly. You can also place Buildings 🏠 if a Regenerator is present. As you progress, you’ll develop your board unlocking more buildings and your settlers will move on their track unlocking bonuses.

You have 3 workers and there are 4 rounds in the game resulting in 12 worker placements, which might sound too few  🧐 This is where the Mission cards come into play! 👉You can acquire cards that show a task - if you fulfill it, you can play the card for its effect. Tasks are about having specific building types, potentially under specific Regenerators or in specific regions of the map. Thanks to these you have a lot of short term goals to work towards and they give a bunch of bonus actions too so you can get more done. 😉

With the variable setup and 9 unlockable end game goals, there is a lot keeping you engaged. We really love combo-filled gameplay, and the game deserves all the buzz it can get! I hope it gets recognition at SPIEL, where it will be released! 🥰😉