Review: Dead of Winter: The Long Night
by Andy Clarke
I love Dead of Winter, it's an awesome zombie based game with excellent scenarios that have a great deal of depth. The mechanics are well thought out and the concept is quite simply a great deal of fun. I've been meaning to write a review of Dead of Winter for a long time but having now played the recently relased "The Long Night" expansion, I felt more compelled to write a review of that and I genuinely wish I could be more positive about it.
I was so excited about this expansion and when friends said they'd bring it to our next games night, needless to say, I couldn't wait. Sadly it turned out to be a dissapointment.
So, it's a "standalone" expansion, meaning that you don't need a copy of the original game to play it. Okay great, good for those who don't own a copy of the original. The down side being it costs the same as the original, both have an RRP of £54.99, which is a lot of money for someone who has the original and is buying it for the purpose of an expansion.
Upon opening the box we found that it contains the exact same main colony board, location boards dice and cardboard popouts that the original game has, save the playable characters. The only additonal parts the this has that the original does not was new card decks for characters, objectives, scenarios and resources etc, one new location board and new cardboard standees for the new characters, zombie variants and the newly added bandits.
For someone that already owns the orginal Dead of Winter, to find that the majority of the "expansion" is 60-70% material you already have is a bit of a kick in the mouth, considering you forked out £55 for it.
For me they could have done a much better job by taking the elements that were new and packaging them as a true expansion. This would make it much better value for those that already own Dead of Winter. I don't see the need for it to be standalone when the orginal is such as huge and rewarding game and a much better introduction to Dead of Winter.
So as an expansion how are the new features? I hear you ask.
Okay, so having said what I've said about if it were truly an expasnion it would be much improved, what the new elements added were sadly underwhelming.
We played a scenario that we hoped would incorporate as many new features as possible including the new location; an experimental lab called Raxxon. From here you could get new fangled experimental weapons and equipment as well as unleash a whole host of non standard zombie creatures.
The concept of the non standard zombies and narrative that came with them was fun and gave the game a fresh new mechanic, but in the end weren't enough to make the expansion worth it. They were no harder to kill than a standard zombie, just had an amusing side effect based on the rusult of a die roll. For example, fighting "The Tank" zombie meant a failure resulted in your character instantly dying and a success also resulted in your character dying, just taking The Tank with you. Other effects incuded killing a zombie called a "spewer" that could explode upon its death covering every character in the same location in life threatenting viscera. Although fun and different, these enemies didn't add enough of a new challenge to make it feel rewarding when you bested them.
What I did like were some of the new experimental weapons that came out of the secret lab, like a ray gun that teleported a character from one location to another. Although silly, thing like this are fun and add a interested new mechanic and approach to strategy.
All in all, I would say if you have £50 to spend on a game buy the original Dead of Winter (which I will do a full review of soon). It's an amazing game and definitely a personal favourite. The Long Night fails as an expansion and offers very little over the original. If in future Plaid Games decide to release the expansion elements on their own for a cost that reflect their value, I would then say it would be worth adding them to the original game. But only once you've exhausted everything the original has to offer, which should take some time.
If you're looking for value for money, look elsewhere.
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| The elements are just as visually stunning as the original with hordes of undead to ruin your day. |
I was so excited about this expansion and when friends said they'd bring it to our next games night, needless to say, I couldn't wait. Sadly it turned out to be a dissapointment.
So, it's a "standalone" expansion, meaning that you don't need a copy of the original game to play it. Okay great, good for those who don't own a copy of the original. The down side being it costs the same as the original, both have an RRP of £54.99, which is a lot of money for someone who has the original and is buying it for the purpose of an expansion.
Upon opening the box we found that it contains the exact same main colony board, location boards dice and cardboard popouts that the original game has, save the playable characters. The only additonal parts the this has that the original does not was new card decks for characters, objectives, scenarios and resources etc, one new location board and new cardboard standees for the new characters, zombie variants and the newly added bandits.
For someone that already owns the orginal Dead of Winter, to find that the majority of the "expansion" is 60-70% material you already have is a bit of a kick in the mouth, considering you forked out £55 for it.
For me they could have done a much better job by taking the elements that were new and packaging them as a true expansion. This would make it much better value for those that already own Dead of Winter. I don't see the need for it to be standalone when the orginal is such as huge and rewarding game and a much better introduction to Dead of Winter.
So as an expansion how are the new features? I hear you ask.
Okay, so having said what I've said about if it were truly an expasnion it would be much improved, what the new elements added were sadly underwhelming.
We played a scenario that we hoped would incorporate as many new features as possible including the new location; an experimental lab called Raxxon. From here you could get new fangled experimental weapons and equipment as well as unleash a whole host of non standard zombie creatures.
The concept of the non standard zombies and narrative that came with them was fun and gave the game a fresh new mechanic, but in the end weren't enough to make the expansion worth it. They were no harder to kill than a standard zombie, just had an amusing side effect based on the rusult of a die roll. For example, fighting "The Tank" zombie meant a failure resulted in your character instantly dying and a success also resulted in your character dying, just taking The Tank with you. Other effects incuded killing a zombie called a "spewer" that could explode upon its death covering every character in the same location in life threatenting viscera. Although fun and different, these enemies didn't add enough of a new challenge to make it feel rewarding when you bested them.
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| You may suceed in killing this guy, but doing so is a suicide mission. |
What I did like were some of the new experimental weapons that came out of the secret lab, like a ray gun that teleported a character from one location to another. Although silly, thing like this are fun and add a interested new mechanic and approach to strategy.
All in all, I would say if you have £50 to spend on a game buy the original Dead of Winter (which I will do a full review of soon). It's an amazing game and definitely a personal favourite. The Long Night fails as an expansion and offers very little over the original. If in future Plaid Games decide to release the expansion elements on their own for a cost that reflect their value, I would then say it would be worth adding them to the original game. But only once you've exhausted everything the original has to offer, which should take some time.
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