$19.99Curious Expedition 2 Expeditions Worth Retelling
Lead a party across vanishing islands, keep their sanity intact and turn every failed run into a good story.
Is Curious Expedition 2 worth it?
Curious Expedition 2 is worth it if…
- you like games where every run tells a different story
- you enjoy managing supplies, sanity and stubborn party members under pressure
- you want a board game feel with dice, hexes and turn-based decisions
- you love hand-drawn comic art and a colorful, strange 19th century
- you don't mind losing a run and starting a new one
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Expeditions where greed and survival pull in opposite directions
Mysterious islands have started appearing off the map, and the great Explorer Clubs are funding trips to loot them for the 1889 World's Fair in Paris. You pick an expedition type with its own goal: chase the legendary Golden Pyramid, or go after the Rainbow Orchid instead. Then you trek across hex grids through biomes that each mix dangers and opportunities in new ways.
Every step costs supplies, and every choice weighs greed against getting out alive. Push deeper for one more temple, or turn back while the party still has its mind? Sanity is a resource like food and water, and when it runs low, so does your grip on what happens next. The pressure is constant, and it is the whole point.
A party with a memory
Your explorers are not stat blocks that follow orders. Characters form relationships, switch loyalty and pick up illnesses as the expedition grinds on, all in response to where you take them and what you decide. Gear them out with equippable items to build a party that can handle whatever the island throws at you.
Combat is turn-based and dice-driven: you roll, then spend the faces cleverly to survive wild animals and legendary creatures. Between fights, the world keeps talking. Villages, temples and stranger cultures offer trade, help and trouble, and the procedural storytelling stitches it all into an adventure that plays out differently every time. When one run ends, badly or gloriously, the next island is already forming.
What should you know before setting off?
How long does a playthrough take?
Shorter than most story campaigns, longer than a quick run. The game is built as an epic campaign that mixes procedural expeditions with handcrafted story, so you go out several times rather than once. Each individual expedition is a self-contained trip across an island, which keeps sessions manageable, and the roguelite structure means a failed run still moves you forward. It is a game you return to over many evenings rather than finish in one.
Do you need to have played the first Curious Expedition?
No. This is its own campaign with its own story, and it stands on its own. If you did play the original, there is plenty that carries over in spirit: the expedition planning, the sanity management, the dice. On top of that you get new items, character types, enemies, biomes, tribes and events, so returning explorers have fresh ground to cover.
Is there anything to do beyond the main campaign?
Yes. Director Mode adds modifiers and features to every expedition, pushing adventures into wilder and more challenging territory once the standard rules feel familiar. There are also weekly online competitions: you pledge yourself to an Explorer Club and compete against other players for unique rewards. Both give the game a reason to stay installed after the story wraps up.
