Vantage challenges you to survive together on a mysterious planet

In Vantage you and your crew mates have crash landed on a strange and mysterious planet, each of you at different locations. You will need to work together, describing what you see so that others can offer expertise and advice as you explore this strange new world seeking to complete your mission or perhaps reveal an even greater destiny.   

Any Stonemaier Games release is bound to be a bit of an event these days, even more so when the game is designed by Jamey Stegmaier himself. The blurb informs me that Vantage is the result of an eight year long labour of love, pulling inspiration from the masterpiece that is Baldur’s Gate 3 among others, but is it actually any good?

Vantage begins with each player picking one of the six characters, each of which specialise in one of the six key skills: Move, look, engage, help, take and overpower. Each player grabs a corresponding skill token for their chosen character. Their character card is placed at the centre of the player’s “grid” which can grow to a maximum of nine cards.

Starting boost tokens are placed on the character card (more on this later). Slap down the central board to keep track of everyone’s time, health and morale, grab some challenge and skill dice and then it’s time to race to the escape pods before the ship is destroyed. A roll of the skill dice will determine the shared mission out of twenty-one possible options, as well as starting skill tokens for each player and where exactly on this vast world you have unceremoniously smashed down. Grab your oversized location card and position it in front of you in the nifty provided holder, making sure your crew mates can’t peek at it.

As you emerge, dazed and bruised from the wreckage it’s time to survey your surroundings.

Player turns in Vantage all follow the same structure. Each location card presents a first person viewpoint, you can freely describe to your fellow players what you see along with your possible actions shown on the card, in fact it’s strongly encouraged, communication and cooperation are king here. Or of course you could simply continue your journey and move on. Each of the six actions on the card is linked to one of the core skills identified by their colour and rune. For example you might see a Look option “study” or an Overpower option “hunt”.

Possible actions will always be single words like this, so there’s lots of discussion while you try and intuit the best way forward. Once you’ve chosen an action you will need to look up the corresponding entry in that skill’s storybook which will give you the skill cost of that action and the outcome once it’s complete (no peeking).

The skill cost can be reduced by players collectively discarding the relevant skill tokens, then players roll challenge dice equal to the remaining cost. Challenge dice will usually show a cost in time, health or morale. Your action will always succeed, it’s just a question of how efficiently. Dice can be removed from the pool before they take effect by placing them in matching slots on your character card as well as other types of card that you may or may not discover in your adventures, the other players can help too. After that it’s time to check the storybook for the outcome of your actions. Some outcomes might direct you to the book of vantages or even the tantalisingly named book of secrets.

That’s the bare bones of it mechanically, the name of the game is to get out there, start touching stuff and see what happens as you open up new options and possibilities by adding cards to your grid. You are free to choose your own goals, the mission might serve as a guidepost but more times than not you might just follow whatever threads or discoveries catch your interest in this expansive world and judge your success by the experience you shared.

I don’t want to spoil too much but one of the best surprises I’ve had so far involved setting up a business and making a new life for myself planetside, I was so invested in my journey that this seemed preferable to any kind of rescue. Rest assured you also stand a good chance of meeting some very interesting and helpful travel companions. I would also advise making sure you have a good look at your character card, other than that get out there and have a blast together.

As the name suggests visual elements are front and centre in Vantage, the oversized location cards look fantastic and do a great job of drawing you into the world. Some of them have some pretty heavy hints, others are more enigmatic and if you are anything like me you will be excited to tell your fellow explorers all about your new vantage every time you move and gain a new location card.

There’s eight hundred locations in the box so it’s going to take you a good few plays before you see the same one twice, or even recognise someone’s description of a place when you eventually stumble into it. Cards that go in your grid have their own distinctive style that sets them apart from the location cards, one of the perks of having three artists work on the game: Valentina Filić, Sören Meding and Emilien Rotival. Every new card reveal is a bit of a thrill and is a huge part of the enjoyment.

Once you’ve discovered an extra card or two for your grid the game will really come alive as you start to explore your newfound abilities. In fact skill tokens will become less relevant the more things unfold, they are very much a way of easing you into the world. Most card abilities revolve around earning and spending boosts which you will track of on the card using little cubes. There’s a lovely feeling of progression as your capabilities increase and you start to discover nifty combos to aid yourself and your comrades.

Vantage is, of course, a cooperative game so you will be spending considerable time workshopping your collective abilities and working out the best way to help each other so that no one’s health, morale or time drops to zero. Should that happen it doesn’t necessarily mean an immediate end to the adventure but something will happen for sure…

It’s worth pointing out that Vantage is not a campaign or a legacy game. Each time you break open the box to play will be a standalone adventure on the same planet. The only thing you carry forward from one session to the next is your knowledge of the planet, which you may or may not share with newcomers, the choice is yours. Personally I like to keep schtum and let others discover things naturally as a consequence of their own decisions.

It has some really smart decisions which help elevate the experience for everyone. First of all there’s no app, a lot of newer games with story based elements are using apps which apparently streamline gameplay and often feature somewhat ropey voice acting. My experience with them has been mixed at best. Vantage ignores this trend and instead comes with nine separate storybooks, one for each of the core skills and a few others. These are designed to be spread around the table so that different players can pick up and read from them as needed. The story entries are all pretty short and sweet. Usually two or three sentences each, so no one will be stuck listening too or reading huge blocks of text. This keeps things moving and helps keep everyone involved.

Cooperative games can often fall victim to bossy or alpha players who tend to dictate how everyone uses their turn, not so in Vantage. Only the player can see their location and possible options, they can choose what to share and everyone will interpret it differently. All actions always succeed and all the outcomes are listed in different storybooks (which have handy rules summaries on the rear) and are only read once an action is resolved, making it hard for the chronically bossy to police choices for optimisation. Finally unless specifically stated it’s only possible to one of the main actions per location per game, optimum paths matter much less than discovery and experiences. All of these smart choices help keep an engaged table that allows everyone their moment, without anyone getting to steamroller or grumble that people have “done it wrong!”.

Vantage does a great job of offering a massive sandbox that makes you just want to start trying stuff out and seeing what happens. Every decision leads to something and the mission only serves as a guidepost you can complete it or pretty much ignore it and have just as much fun in the world. It’s very rewarding to set your own goals and explore on your own terms and see who can discover the coolest stuff. With well over a thousand cards it’s going to take some serious time to see it all, it took me three plays before I worked out how to do anything with the money!

As ever with Stonemaier Games production quality and rule clarity is on point, bonus points for the very low but not quite plastic free box. There are some really nice upgrades available online like wooden skill tokens and card holders to keep your grid nice and organised if like me you like to deluxe your games.

All in all Vantage was a great experience from start to finish that offered a great sense of discovery. The short and snappy storybook entries were very welcome compared to some more longwinded campaign games I’ve played recently and really kept things thumping along. The cooperative elements and the multiple storybook approach means that players are left with very little downtime and the missions and destinies do a great job giving players who need direction in a sandbox a specific goal. It just might be one of my top games of 2025 and Jamey Stegmaier’s masterpiece.

You can grab Vantage from Amazon.