Gloomhaven XSX Review 8.5/10 "How Deep is Your (board gaming) Love?" 🧙‍♂️ @GloomhavenGame #IndieGame #GameDev

Although Gloomhaven was originally released on PC back in 2021, I wanted to cover it here on GF (on Xbox) in 2024 because I had such a rich experience with the boardgame on which it is based at one of our regular nerdy weekends away a few weeks ago. At said weekends, we tend to have several smaller, briefer games, and then a hefty one to tuck into for a good portion of each day. In this way we’ve played some pretty heavy hitters...but Gloomhaven always lurked at the back of our minds. 

For those not aware, Gloomhaven is an incredibly celebrated board game that takes forty million years to set up, a hundred thousand ice ages to finish a single round, and has a rule book thicker than Brian Blessed’s beard that will end up more well-thumbed than Oliver Reed’s Wine Society catalogue. Don’t get me wrong, it’s an amazing board game, but it takes time.

I was intrigued at how a game of such impressive depth would translate to the video game medium, and it turns out that it’s handled quite well, but the sheer amount of variables, and the complexity of each round is unshakeable, and I can very much imagine that people would find it alienating – I know how to play the game, and even then, as I made my way through this video game version, I was aware of the sheer length of time it took to make any significant progress, it’s almost part of the charm in a strange way, as it gives every choice a sense of weight and tension.

The core mechanics of the game are quite standard, in that you play a group of adventurers exploring dungeons and the like, gaining experience and levelling up along the way as you move further through your over-arching quest, and it’s very well presented here, a lot of the performance issues at launch have since been patched out, and the game runs smoothly – on the XSX, at least – and the deliberate pacing is matched by tasty visuals and suitably doom-laden music.

The thing that differentiates this from others of its ilk are the variables in each stage of movement, exploration, and combat – I get the sense that no matter how good, or ‘quick’ you get with Gloomhaven, it’ll never be a game that you can ‘dip’ into, the sheer heft of it almost demands a wine-drenched evening of your time, as you gaze at your screen through furrowed brows, poring over ever painstaking move, in that regard it’s one of the most in-depth games that I’ve played – and enjoyed. 

SUMMARY

If you are a sucker for games that aren’t shy of taking up your time, Gloomhaven is a rich and satisfying experience that provides an incredible amount of well-crafted play time, but be prepared to dedicate quite a few days to truly plumb its depths. 

Also, top-tip – if you are playing with anyone called Dave, don’t let them rush ahead mid-battle and open another fucking door.