Atlantis Exodus

Atlantis Exodus arrived on the table with the weight of a box that has no intention of making things easy for you. It is a heavy euro with a great many ideas packed into the same space, and my first encounter found it more overwhelming than I usually am; not unpleasantly so, but with the sense that the game was already talking before I had properly settled into my chair.

At its core, this is a dense euro experience: there is plenty demanding your attention, several choices living side by side, and the first play feels more like an introduction than a comfortable journey. The advertised 90 minutes sounds optimistic, particularly while everyone is still trying to get its abundance into their heads.

There are fresh touches within all that weight, and the end-game scoring seems to place real emphasis on what you have built over the course of the game. I do not yet have enough of a view to say with confidence how directly players collide, but the interaction appears to come first through pressure on choices and through reading that final reckoning.

I did not have a bad time for a moment, which matters in a game that made me work on first acquaintance. I want another play before attaching a complete label to it, but for euro devotees Atlantis Exodus looks quietly promising.