Leviathan Wilds

What is Leviathan Wilds?

• 1–4 player cooperative boss battler where you climb giant leviathans to heal them
• Multi-use card decks determine movement, actions, and your literal grip on the monster
• 17 different leviathans in the base box, each on a spiral-bound board
• Multiple difficulty levels including Normal, Hard, Expert, and Cataclysm
• Fully playable solo, which is how I’ve experienced it so far

Leviathan Wilds is essentially a cooperative climbing puzzle where you scale massive, corrupted leviathans and destroy binding crystals embedded in their bodies to heal them. Instead of slaying the monster like something out of Shadow of the Colossus, you’re curing it. Mechanically, you manage a small deck of multi-use cards to move, strike crystals, protect yourself, and avoid falling. The boss has its own escalating AI system where threat cards flip and gradually become more dangerous as the rage track advances, which creates a soft timer on the scenario.

I’ve only played this solo at the time of writing this (but playing this multihanded, not using the core solo rules). And I was very hyped for it. Which makes where I landed on my final thoughts with it… interesting?

What I Like About Leviathan Wilds

Incredible Table Presence and Production

This game looks fantastic. Not mini’s or huge component bling bling fantastic, but fantastic none-the-less.

The spiral-bound leviathan book spreads across the table and immediately gives you that sense of scale. You really do feel small climbing these things. The colors are vibrant, the dice are bold and satisfying colors (I’m a sucker for pastel colors, which I think these are?), the character art pops, and everything feels premium despite not being over produced. I love the color palette. I love the component quality. I love that there are 17 leviathans in the base box all with great art.

Even though I don’t love the spiral binding itself, the idea of it is awesome. It’s clever. It makes the box size reasonable. And it absolutely works visually. I’d love to see someone nail a design similar but without spirals. I think the closest I’ve seen to what I want is how Marvel Dice Thrones did their maps… but the quality of the physical copy of those were a bit lacking (for my tastes) in as they would not lay as flat as the spiral books here.

If you judge this game by first impression alone, I can see it being over hyped and hitting someone’s S-Tier for a lower budget game.

Theme That Absolutely Nails the Vibe

Yes… every review mentions Shadow of the Colossus. I’m not going to pretend I didn’t think about it constantly when I read about this board game.

But the thematic twist matters here as well. You’re not killing these creatures. You’re healing them. That changes the emotional tone… and I appreciate that to a point.

The act of climbing, jumping, gliding, and sometimes intentionally falling down the leviathan is thematically strong. The falling system in particular is cool in theory (although not as fun in actual gameplay). Running out of cards, which represent your grip, and physically dropping down is an interesting touch. Your deck representing your grip is smart design.

On paper, thematically, this is everything I want to see in a board game.

The Difficulty System and Escalation

I love solo games with difficulty tiers. I will likely call this out in every solo game that has them. Leviathan Wilds has multiple levels including Casual, Normal, Hard, Expert. That kind of built-in scaling gives you progression and replayability if you are into playing a game with a checklist of things to do (which I do).

The boss AI system is also elegant. Each round you reveal a threat card, act, then resolve the threat. Over time the threat row reshuffles, rage increases, and more cards flip to their enraged side. It’s a clean escalation system that makes the leviathan feel increasingly unstable and dangerous and ties directly into how you kick off the difficulty of the game as well.

I genuinely think more co-op games should look at how this system handles boss scaling. It’s structured (but also random) yet still unpredictable once you know what cards have enraged.

Setup Is Surprisingly Fast for a Scenario Game

Despite having 17 leviathans, threat decks, dice placement, and character combinations, the actual setup flow is pretty streamlined once you understand it. For a abstracted almost campaign-style boss battler, it’s not a table hog in terms of time investment or table space, which is a plus for me.

Clear Turn Structure Keeps Analysis Paralysis in Check

With only three cards in hand and limited action points per turn, the game moves quickly. Even though it’s tactical, the decision space is contained enough that it rarely spirals into heavy AP, especially compared to other co-op puzzle games although this also partially leans into what I don’t like about the game too… as I think I like meatier AP games or games that feel like at any given time you have multiple good options at your disposal.

One thing the game does really well mechanically is the card tension.

This is similar to the AP point, but you only ever have three cards in hand, and every turn you’re choosing whether to burn one for action points or hold it for its ability. Since your deck represents your grip on the leviathan, running out of cards literally makes you fall. That’s such a smart design choice. There were turns where I would push just a little too hard, empty my deck, and drop down the body, and thematically that feels awesome. On paper, that system is elegant. It’s clean. It makes sense. And I respect that design a lot.

What I Don’t Like About Leviathan Wilds

Lighter and More Constrained Than I Expected

This is probably the biggest thing.

I expected something heavier. If not heavier more… nuanced with more identity. Especially the character/role combo that are in the game. Characters have attribute rankings of mobility, power, support and complexity… but at two players (playing two handed in my case), I had a harder time finding great support options in my limited play.

Instead, it felt lighter… and more repetitive turn to turn… than my initial impressions from what I had seen gave it.

You have three cards. You play one for action points. You use the rest for abilities. Sometimes the leviathan targets an area and you can move out of it. Sometimes you can’t. You can try to predict what it might do based on what cards are left but other times, it’s just random. If another climber is adjacent and you don’t have the right card, they just take the hit. That randomness can feel swingy.

There were moments where it felt like the game required very specific cards at very specific times. And if you didn’t have them… you just sort of shrugged and absorbed the damage or fell. In other cases, if you put your resources heavily into avoiding something or predicting what might happen… you often felt you were falling behind and would lose because of it. It was a weird tension that just didn’t right totally for (for my tastes) at least. But it also could be a skill issue. Who knows.

It never felt like I had huge creative freedom in solving the puzzle. It felt more like solving within tight constraints. In a game like Gloomhaven, which I think has a similar source of card-efficiency built into it where you are trying to extract the MOST value of your cards, you often feel like you are pulling out extra value all the time to solve problems at the pop up… this does a similar thing but the ceiling always felt way lower and tighter and ultimately less fun.

Maybe that’s intentional. Maybe I just haven’t seen the deeper strategy yet since I have limited plays. But it didn’t hook me.

Character and Role Combinations Feel Less Distinct Than Advertised

On paper, you mix a character like Savvy, Fix, or Kestrel with a role like Breaker, Freelancer, Herald, or Gambler. That sounds amazing and feels like it will create a lot of depth and synergy options.

In practice, the roles feel like they carry way more mechanical weight than the characters themselves. You get a couple character-specific cards and a unique power, but the bulk of your gameplay identity comes from the role deck.

Yes, mathematically there are tons of combinations. I even made a giant tracking sheet thinking I’d be diving deep into optimizing builds. But they didn’t feel radically different as I expected.

It felt like the promise of infinite combinations was stronger than the reality of how distinct those combinations actually play which was shame, but again, that’s just my opinion. I’m sure someone beating the game on the hardest difficulties has figured out how to best milk the character powers with the best roles, etc.

The Play Another Game Hook Wasn’t There

This might be the most negative thing I can say about the game. This game went from “I cannot wait to play this” to “I haven’t touched it” very quickly after only a couple of plays.

I own the expansion. I haven’t even opened it. That’s not a good sign when I reflect on my thoughts of this game.

I don’t even hate the game. That’s the weird part. There isn’t a big glaring flaw. It’s more like a quiet disconnect with my tastes somehow that I can’t quite articulate well. The gameplay just didn’t grab me. It didn’t create that itch to immediately reset and try again. And while a game being endlessly re-playable for me is often overrated a bit (I don’t mind a good fixed amount of game plays in some games), I do want a game to call me back to play it. Games like Slay The Spire The Board Game are always doing that to me and I always want it back on the table.

I hate solo modes that are worse than the core game

I actually didn’t even play the solo mode included in the game. It felt clear I would dislike it more than just multihanding it. This seems to happen a lot in games where a solo mode misses the mark in comparison to just playing multihanded or how it plays cooperatively. Dead Cells the Board game is another one that does this too in some ways.

Mechanically Clean, Emotionally Flat

But here’s where it didn’t fully click for me. A typical turn is reveal threat, play a card for action points, climb or strike a crystal, resolve threat, draw back up. That loop is clean… maybe too clean. I kept waiting for the moment where it would explode into something deeper or more surprising, and instead it stayed fairly contained. You’re often just reducing dice pips on crystals and managing positioning. It works. It’s fine. But I didn’t feel the dramatic tension I expected from scaling a giant living creature. It felt more like solving a tight tactical puzzle than surviving something massive and unpredictable.

Final Thoughts About Leviathan Wilds

Leviathan Wilds is a beautiful smaller footprint “almost for me” game.

The production is fantastic. The theme works if not a bit too abstract in some cases. The AI escalation is elegant. The concept is incredibly strong. The climbing puzzle should be exactly my kind of thing.

But for whatever reason, the gameplay loop didn’t sink its hooks into me. It felt lighter than expected. A bit constrained. Occasionally swingy. And the character combinations didn’t feel as wildly different as advertised.

There is a chance the later Leviathan’s would shake up the gameplay

That said… I still want to revisit it.

I have this lingering suspicion that I may have missed something. That with more plays, better role pairing, or pushing into harder leviathans, it might open up. I only played the first few leviathans. Maybe the later ones really evolve the system. I don’t know yet.

Right now, it sits in that frustrating space of “I respect this more than I love it.”

And that’s tough.