iOS, Android, PC •

As can be seen in our Readers’ Game of the Year nominations, Race for the Galaxy is considered one of the best games of 2017. Temple Gates did a bang up job on it, crafting a wonderful UI, bringing in Keldon’s AI for solo play, and providing a robust multiplayer experience. As great as it is, the thing it’s lacking in comparison to its cardboard ancestor are expansions. It launched with two, Gathering Storm and Rebel vs. Imperium. The third, Brink of War arrived today, just in time to help it get more votes in our end of year polling.

Brink of War is an expansion that adds a ton of content beginning with 4 new start worlds, 36 new planets and developments, five new goals, and two new mechanisms. The two new mechanisms are Search and Prestige. Search is pretty easy, once per game you can use your power to look through the draw deck for a card that matches certain criteria.

Prestige, on the other hand, is a bit more complex. It’s basically another resource at your disposal, and you can use it just to earn more points (boring!) or to do other, cool things (hooray!). For example, if you have more Prestige than anyone else at the beginning of a turn you get 1VP and get to draw a card. Okay, that’s still pretty dull. The interesting aspect of Prestige comes when you spend it to boost your action for the turn. Draw more cards, spend less on a development, Settle using less cards or grant yourself extra military. There are a ton of options with, of course, the downside being that you kind of want to keep your prestige to get those oh-so-boring VPs, too. Oh, did I mention that each Prestige is worth 1 VP at game’s end, as well? Ugh, there’s always a catch.

The new expansion is available on all platforms via IAP and will cost $4. Even if you don’t want the expansion, it’s probably not a bad idea to buy it anyway and get some cash in Temple Gates’ coffers. We want them to have a very merry Xmas and by “merry”, I mean “productive” as in, “working on a Mac version and Roll for the Galaxy“. Yes, I’m being selfish as hell, but I’m nowhere near as bad as my kids.