Vantage builds its map as you play rather than laying it out up front, terrain tiles get revealed and placed based on where you scout, and there’s a real thrill the first time that mechanism clicks, discovering the world at the same pace your character does instead of studying a board you already know cold. Coming from the same team behind Race for the Galaxy, I went in expecting tight, elegant systems, and the exploration layer delivers on that, watching a landscape assemble itself organically is a genuinely different feeling than the usual pre-set board.

Where it lost some steam for me was the survival layer stacked on top, managing hunger and threat and resource gathering while also exploring started to feel like two games competing for the same turn rather than one integrated experience, and a few sessions in I found myself optimizing the survival bookkeeping instead of enjoying the discovery that hooked me in the first place. It’s not broken, it’s just busier than the elegant premise promised.

Two player keeps a decent pace, which matters to me more than it probably should at this point, though I did notice downtime creeping in during the setup-heavy early turns while tiles get sorted and placed. I keep comparing it, maybe unfairly, to Eldervale in how many systems it’s trying to run at once, and Eldervale’s tighter scoring paths edge it out for me even though Vantage wins on sheer table presence and the genuine novelty of the reveal-as-you-go map. Three stars, a game I respect more than I reach for, and I suspect a second campaign run once we’ve internalized the survival math might move that number.