Card Hunter: Expedition to the Sky Citadel (PC) Review

First and foremost, Card Hunter has what must be one of the most positive, welcoming, and helpful communities in free-to-play gaming. Vitriolic slander is the exception rather than the norm, and that's probably because the tactical-minded and slower style of gameplay is more attractive to calmer players than those looking for an excuse to spout whatever slurs they think of. Card Hunter is very much a social experience, and the inviting community makes the entire thing work beautifully.

Expedition to the Sky Citadel doesn't introduce many more features to the core game, and with multiplayer being one of the best features there aren't very many reasons left to purchase the expansion pack. There is so little content that it doesn't feel right to refer to it as an "expansion pack," because it's much more like DLC. Since "DLC" as a term runs the gamut from horse armour to The Elder Scroll V: Skyrim's Dawnguard, though, it's important to point out that Expedition to the Sky Citadel does fall on the heftier side.

In essence, Expedition to the Sky Citadel is a continuation of the game, intended for characters level eighteen and above, but players who lack such high-level characters need not worry—Expedition to the Sky Citadel includes a starting party of characters who are high enough in level to tackle the adventures. This is rather welcome, because the grind from level one characters to level eighteen characters is a long one, indeed.

Expedition to the Sky Citadel also breaks away from the classical Fantasy setting of the main game to foray into sci-fi, and while the random bits of Stephen Hawking's voice were humorous, the setting hardly even matters when there's next-to-no establishment of setting. The colour scheme changes to metallic, the music improves drastically compared to the generic fantasy music of the main game, and adventure text is presented as though from a computer, rather than a Games Master. Inside adventures, orcish and goblin enemies are replaced with…

That's really one of the biggest issues with Card Hunter and Expedition to the Sky Citadel: the cardboard cut-outs that represent enemies and characters are nearly impossible to identify. Especially at higher resolutions, the character cut-outs become vaguely humanoid shapes filled in with various colours. To exacerbate this problem, enemies don't always face the player; they tend to face the characters, and the backs of the cut-outs are solid white, meant to emulate how they would look if they were cut out of paper. While the design choice is understandable, it's not aesthetically pleasing, and it only increases the frequency at which players look at an enemy and have no idea what it is supposed to be.

A steady trickle of new items and frequent updates have certainly improved the experience, but these things are available without the Expedition to the Sky Citadel DLC, which really drives home that all that is being purchased is a mini-campaign, a party of characters too powerful to be useful in the main campaign, and access to loot for higher level characters to use. It's really not much bang for the buck. However, purchasing Expedition to the Sky Citadel isn't so much about the content as it is showing appreciation for Card Hunter and wanting to support its continued development. For fans of the main game, Expedition to the Sky Citadel is more than worth the current asking price of $12.99. Although it certainly does add content to justify the purchase, it appears to be mostly about supporting Blue Manchu.