In World of Warcraft – Wrath of the Lich King you play as famous heroes from the Warcraft universe as you try to defeat the evil Lich King and his army of undead.

The game see you moving around the map, battling Ghouls and Abominations, travelling to various locations to complete quests. These quests are completed by rolling dice or revealing cards from your hand with the appropriate symbols. Once you’ve completed three quests, the final quest, at the Lich King’s fortress of Icecrown Citadel, becomes available. Complete that quest and you win.

The games uses a twist on the Pandemic system, with cards revealed each round which spawn Ghouls at various locations. As with Pandemic, things can go downhill quickly for the players if the spread of Ghouls is left unchecked.

I very much enjoyed it. While the skeleton of Pandemic is definitely there, it feels like much more than just a reskin. Rolling dice for combat is fun, and your hands of cards, which contains cards to help you fight, travel, defend and heal, always feels useful.

Each hero has special abilities which make them feel nice and unique. I played as the archer Sylvanas Windrunner who was able to shoot a powerful arrow into adjacent spaces.

The game looks fantastic as well, with lovely miniatures and a great production throughout. The large card citadel isn’t just for looks either: once you complete the three quests, the tower section gets removed and the base gets flipped over, becoming a platform on which the Lich King now stands, awaiting the final confrontation. The whole thing feels super atmospheric and thematic.

One thing I liked was how cooperative it feels: quests are easier to complete if more than one hero is on the quest space, so working together makes sense and feels great.

Overall, I loved the experience. There’s 4 different difficulty levels, as well as random quests and rewards for each game, so there seems to be a good amount of replay value, too.

A fantastic twist on the formula, I had a great time with it.

[This review was originally posted on Instagram in January 2021]

For more content, please follow me on Instagram