Who Goes There? Review

Stuck in the Antarctic while waiting for a helicopter. Also, there's an alien. And it's cold. And you're hungry. And you're probably going to die.

Who Goes There? is based on the story of the same name. A group of scientists are in Antarctica and they accidentally release an alien that may or may not infect the survivors. As the game goes on, you become increasingly paranoid of the other players. This is due to failing events or losing attacks and having to draw vulnerable cards. The best part about these cards is that only 1 from the entire deck infects someone. The amount of vulnerable cards is public information but who is infected is not so players are never sure who is your side.

The game plays over 15 rounds (18 if you're feeling particularly spicy) where players are burning through their action cubes to search for items, craft, move around the base or do general survival stuff. After each phase, you'll need to contribute food and sleep. If you have no food or sleep alone, you must draw vulnerable cards. Vulnerable cards aren't the only thing you need to worry about though, you also need to keep yourself warm. If you spend too much time outside, you can burn through all of your stamina which all but guarantees you're going to have a bad time in the event of an attack or any other general terribleness. Depending on your stamina level will depend on how many action dice you get to roll. The lower the stamina, the fewer the dice. These dice act as your skill checks. Fail a skill check and you guessed it; vulnerable card. You also have to worry about frostbite when outside or if the door breaks. Frostbite is particularly an issue if you're unconscious. If you're unconscious for 3 straight turns you die and the game is over for you.

The game ends with the helicopter round. This is where the players will need to decide who's going home and who's staying in Antarctica. This is by far the most intense phase of the entire game. With everything that went on prior to this, the humans want only the humans to go and the infected needs to get on there with a human. Once it's decided who gets to leave, everyone reveals their status. Assuming that players board, now there are some calculations that need to be done and if the threshold is met, the helicopter takes off and players go home. If the humans are above the threshold, they win. If the humans are below the threshold and there's an infected on board, the infected win. If the humans are below and there's no infected, nobody wins.

The Good: The components of the game is top notch. Nice minis, chunky dice, double layer boards. For the sheer size of the game and the box itself, you'd think that it's going to be a long game but I felt like the amount of time was perfect. It did not overstay its welcome and it created some genuinely funny moments. In the game we played, one character had zero luck and was knocked unconscious several times and eventually just had to be left for dead outside because we couldn't get a first aid kit.

The Okay: There is a fair bit of luck involved with this one. Since so much of the game is based on searching, you'll need to hope that you pull the cards you need. In my example above, we had to leave them for dead because we spent several turns not pulling what we needed and we didn't play with the doctor. This was also an issue with the crafting aspect. I loved that crafting was a thing but I didn't get to utilize it as much as I would have liked to.

The Not So Good: You'll need the right group for this one for sure and you're going to want to play above the minimum number of players (3). If that's not an issue for you then disregard the entire statement but if you're like me and struggle to get a group of that size that enjoys a game like this, then it may be a skip.

Overall: 7.5/10

Who Goes There? is a really cool game that I knew nothing about prior to reading the manual and playing the game. I knew about the other games based on The Thing but I feel like this one did it in a much more captivating way. Maybe I'm partial to chunky dice and premium components but I could see this one staying in my collection for a long time.

Thanks to Certifiable Studios for sending a copy of this my way. If you want to check it out for yourself click here.