Card Hunter: Expedition to the Sky Citadel Expansion Review

Published: September 30, 2015 9:00 AM /

Reviewed By:


Card Hunter Expedition to the Sky Citadel

Originally launched in 2013, Card Hunter is a unique blend of Dungeons and Dragons story and RPG elements combined with card-based gameplay. The game offers a wide range of campaigns and stories to play through as you level up your characters, and with its debut on Steam, has released an all new expansion: Expedition to the Sky Citadel. This science fiction inspired campaign is sure to give you a brand new, and very challenging, Card Hunter experience!

Before proceeding further, read our Card Hunter review!

This new edition of Card Hunter is very much the same as the one that you may have played in your browser after the game released in 2013, albeit with a new sci-fi campaign, artifacts, and co-operative multiplayer. The gameplay is the same, meshing Magic: The Gathering card collection and battling with Dungeons & Dragons story telling and RPG aspects. Throughout Card Hunter, each of the modules you encounter offer unique stories and challenges, such as Ruby Demon Portal, The Black Forest, Descent to the Core, and more, giving you a different story to try and conquer each time.

A few of the adventures that await you!
A few of the adventures that await you!

There's something different about Expedition to the Sky Citadel, though. The story and gameplay introduced in this new expansion are different from what you see from the rest of the game, offering some new sci fi story and weaponry to test your mettle. While very different from the rest of Card Hunter, a bit of research helped me find that AD&D had a similar module called "Expedition to the Barrier Peaks" that was released in 1980. To sum it up—with robots, mutants, laser swords, and more—Expedition to the Sky Citadel was one of the more challenging modules I've encountered in Card Hunter

If you've been playing Card Hunter for a while now, chances are your party is already prepared to tackle Expedition to the Sky Citadel. But if they're not, you'll be offered an opportunity to tackle the new module(s) with a pre-made party. Note: For the sake of this review, I went with a pre-made party instead of my main party in order to properly review the content in full.

Laser Swords!
Laser Swords!

The pre-made party included when you start the first module are high level with reasonable gear, and while it makes each module a challenge, you can definitely beat them without having to go to the shops and upgrade your gear. That doesn't mean that if you want to make it easier on yourself, you can't do that though! In the end, what really mattered is that you took your time and used the enemy's own abilities against them—I highly recommend looking at the hints on each module if you get stuck!

While the gameplay offered in Expedition to the Sky Citadel is no different than the base Card Hunter game, there are a few changes that do change up the game a bit, such as Co-Op and new cards. With the release on Steam, co-op gameplay is now doable within the game, allowing you and your friends to play through the adventure content together. By completing the adventures, players will still receive the same rewards, but will also receive a reward for helping complete a quest. There's a whole lot of details you can find on Card Hunter's site, but suffice it to say, it works well and is a great way to play the game with friends!

The other new change is the addition of new Sci-Fi cards related to the expansion, offering things such as mutations, laser weaponry, and more to really change up the game for you. I enjoyed going back and playing content I'd already completed, but with the new cards, it was a whole different experience.

Without going into extreme details of each module and revealing much, let me say that strategy is incredibly important when playing this expansion. Between the enemy's ability to "mutate" and shrug off damage, the high damage abilities, and the raw power of the robots presented in Expedition to the Sky Citadel, players need to really think through each action and plan out their approach.

More than anything, the fact that each time you played a module it was completely different is what stood out to me. I could figure out a strategy, but when implementing it on the next run, it could backfire completely purely because an enemy had a mutation card they didn't the try before!

Card Hunter ETTSC Throne of The Mechanical Men

Difficulty aside, the story and humor that's brought to the table was a great new touch, pitting players and the DMs that had been guiding us until this point up against a rogue computerized DM. The Hal of Tabletop, if you will. Combine that with all new abilities, spells, and attacks, and Expedition to the Sky Citadel is well worth your time and money.

The Expedition to the Sky Citadel expansion is a great addition to Card Hunter, and the fact that part of its release included the game's release on Steam made it even better! You can either buy the new expansion with in-game currency and get all that the expansion offers, or you can buy individual dungeons—completely up to you! So, now that you can play on Steam (for free!) with your friends, it's a great time to check our Card Hunter and Take on the Hal of Tabletop, the Cardotron 2000, in Expedition to the Sky Citadel!

You can play the game at Card Hunter's Website, or on Steam.

Disclaimer: This game was reviewed on PC with a code provided by the developer.

Review Summary

9.0

Card Hunter's Expedition to the Sky Citadel is a great new addition to Card Hunter, especially with the Steam Release that accompanied it!

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Rutledge Daugette
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Rutledge Daugette is the Guides Editor & Founder of TechRaptor. Rutledge's degree in Game Programming ultimately led him to found the site in 2013, with… More about Rutledge