Review Summary: The strongest expansion for Alone, including cool final missions, special creatures, and even a hybrid hero. The tables have turned... again.

Blurb from the publisher: 'Try new gameplay styles with the Alone™ Deep Expansion!

The Deep Expansion includes:

- three Hero miniatures.

- three Character cards.

- four Boss miniatures.

- six Mission cards.

The Alone™ Deep Expansion includes 3 hero miniatures (with the corresponding character cards and 2 mission cards) and 4 boss creature miniatures (with the corresponding mission cards). The expansion also includes 5 special creature cards that can be used with the mob rules. They allow players to use miniatures of unique creatures in a different way. The special rules for rooms, on the other hand, give the hero player the opportunity to interact directly with the surroundings.'

What you get: Your EUR 25 or equivalent will buy you Alone: Deep Expansion, an expansion for Alone, an asymmetrical semi-cooperative dungeon crawler that started the game line of the same name. It is reminded that the base game accommodates from two to four players in a maximum of two hours and a half. The present expansion does not change either the number of players nor the playing time.

In addition to the small-size, 4-page rulebook in English, French, German, Italian and Spanish, which can also be found on the publisher's website free of charge, the expansion includes the following: 7 miniatures, 3 Character cards, 5 Special Creature cards, 6 Mission cards, one Special Room Actions reference card, 5 Special Creature tokens, and one Companion token. Note that all the cards are provided in all the aforementioned language versions (e.g. the total number of Character cards is 15, 3 per language version).

Gameplay: Three new heroes join the fray: the survivor suit, the armored suit, and the hybrid hero. The first allows him to discard an item for an additional fight action, the second protects the hero against attacks of opportunity, while the (thematically innovative) hybrid hero makes him less susceptible to danger tokens. Sacrifice the first and you immediately gain a serious boost in both health and self-control. Its companion ability is identical to its standard ability, but you may use it only if lose health. Sacrificing the second gives you Body Armor from the item deck. Its companion ability is once again similar to its standard ability. The intriguing Hybrid Hero removes all non-boss creatures in a sector, even though the evil players can retaliate. As a companion the hybrid fights more efficiently in sectors with danger tokens.

There is one green and five red mission cards. The starting scenario is called 'I'm a Survivor' and, as expected, you have to either save that man or eliminate him, if the evil players get to him first. The five red final missions are diverse. You have an alien pod extermination premise, a marathon (survive for ten turns), a race against time after swapping from your chosen hero to the hybrid hero (in order to inoculate against the mutation), fixing things around in different LCUs, and a fight against the liquid Hydromorph, which can also be resolved by frantically fixing the control room.

The expansion introduces two new rules mechanics. These can be used together, or independently from one another.

The first module is about special creatures like the parasite from the deep or the incubator. Each creature belongs to a different type, and breaks the rules in a different way. As an example, health loss due to a hit from the spider from the deep prohibits the player from using adrenaline during the next turn, while the more the hydromorph moves, the more the danger increases. Up to three special creatures can find their way in the game. Once a particular special creature is killed, it cannot be spawned again.

The second module is Special Room Actions. The hero may use eight new actions in non-mission rooms. They are considered scavenge actions, but produce different effects. Revive a Companion is self-explanatory, Find Stimulant Stash adds to your adrenaline, Activate Healing Tank allows you to recover a serious amount of health or self-control, and many more. As expected, only one action may be used in a single room (forfeiting the hero's right to use scavenge in that room), while each special action can only be used once per game.

The strong points: This is admittedly the strongest expansion in this batch (Alpha, Deep, Avatar). One can expect up to a certain degree of innovation in the more-of-the-same elements, I was however very pleasantly surprised with the hybrid hero and how he pushed the thematic agenda. If you start a scenario using him already, the game's theme suddenly feels less scary. The tentacles, the monstrosities, the darkness, it's all still there, but now you are a monstrosity yourself, a monstrosity trying to escape. Are you locked in there with them, or are they locked in there with you?

The new scenarios left me equally satisfied, especially the red ones. If anything, they are extremely diverse and once again very original and thematic. The 'last for 10 turns' is conceptually my favourite one, even though it can be a downer when you unlock it while holding your own intestines from falling on the floor.

I enjoyed the special creatures; they give the evil players an extra edge, not necessarily because of their firepower, but because of their special ability. That having been said, don't use them thoughtlessly. If they die (and if you play it clever they don't need to), their death should better matter since they are never coming back.

The new special actions breathe fresh air into the game which at times could become predictable when it came to the hero's actions. The fact that he can use each of these actions only once in a game at the cost of receiving extra items, adds an extra layer of tactics. It also serves as a warning to the evil players who have to adapt themselves. You treat your creatures with more care when the hero keeps his healing bed available.

The cards are of the same quality as the cards in the base game. Idem for the miniatures which can and should be used in other gaming escapades once you paint them. I am not the only one to have more than one tentacled miniature in my arsenal, yet some of these are really something, especially the more original hydromorph.

The new rules are a piece of cake. You won't need more than five minutes to integrate the new expansion into your Alone experience.

The weak points: I wrote I in the review of the Alpha expansion and I will write it again: New characters for random scenarios are fine, yet shouldn't they have custom-made scenarios forming a cohesive campaign just like the four characters in the base game? I am not suggesting putting a new rulebook inside the box; posting the new scenarios on the publishers' website would have been enough, just to get a thematic treat. This is an incredibly thematic game to keep the fans hanging.

When it comes to the game's atmosphere, I did not like how the hero knows the special creatures that will appear during the mission. It might or might not be more balanced this way (and my statistically irrelevant playtests do not allow me to gauge that), yet it contradicts the game's thematic flow.

I am rather disappointed by the lack of integration between this expansion and the Avatar one. No guidance is provided about using both special creatures and avatars at the same time. Is it something so abominable that should never be explored? I would have preferred it if the short rulebook addressed the issue instead of ignoring it, even if to say no and explain why.

At EUR 25 the expansion comes as expensive for the new rules, the seven miniatures and the nine cards that you will use. What however makes this more pronounced is that it includes not nine but 45 cards, and you only get to use 20% of those. Multilingual editions of games are fine in principle, yet repeating even a handful of cards in numerous different languages is seldom a good idea. On the one hand, it is totally understood that a poor move from the publisher there might sink the game. On the other hand, nobody likes to pay for things he will not use. I wish both this expansion as well the Avatar one were handled differently in that sense.

Unless you unceremoniously dump the miniatures in the base game's box, there is no way you can keep everything in one place. That is of course more of an issue of the base game's box, and not the expansion's. The bottom line is that this box stayed on my self to fully protect all the minis, something that I really wanted to avoid. Sigh. The lack of shelf space is not a joke. Many gamers depart from their games not necessarily because they don't play them, but because they cannot store them. Game lines should think about the future, no matter how many boxes they use when released.

Conclusion: The Alone: Deep Expansion has a lot to offer. The Special Room Actions add depth and tactics, having new thematic heroes and companions is always a good idea, while the special monsters increase the uncertainty and the influence of the evil players over the game. On the other hand it would have been great to see cool scenarios accompany the new heroes, not to mention a more wallet-friendly approach. All in all, strongly recommended for those into Alone, and especially if you find it between the 15 - 20 EUR mark.

For more info on Alone: Deep Expansion, the Horrible Guild and Ares Games visit their respective websites at https://www.horribleguild.com and https://www.aresgames.eu.

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