Unstoppable Board Game Review

Unstoppable manages to pack quite a bit into a relatively small box, as far as modern board games go. Inside, it includes nearly 300 cards of varying shapes and sizes (emphasis on shapes, as they are unlike anything I’ve ever handled), including four different heroes to play as, three unique bosses and their corresponding decks, as well as core cards, upgrade cards, and various threats originating from the universe’s three fictional planets.

Additionally, it includes two reversible player mats, a couple sheets of cardboard damage counters and credits to punch out, as well as some wooden pieces to track health, armor, level, and available action points each turn. I was pleased to find labeled card dividers, which help organize and separate the various card types for easier setup and teardown.

Interestingly, more than 100 card sleeves are included. These aren’t simply to protect your cards (especially since it’s missing nearly 200 to sleeve the entire set), they are actually required to engage in the game’s card upgrading mechanic. See, in Unstoppable, you’ll actually be combining multiple cards during the game to create a single, unique card that changes with each run.

But, before you can hit the table for your first playthrough, you’ll need locate, pair up, and sleeve more than 100 cards as outlined in the rulebook. While this step can be a bit tedious, it does allow you to get a look at many of the abilities and enemies you’ll be encountering. Thankfully, this is a one-time requirement, as future games will always start you off with these preassembled double-sided cards.

Rules and How It Plays

The goal of Unstoppable is simple – defeat the boss before running out of health or reaching the final space on the danger track, located on the boss mat.

It’s worth noting that Unstoppable can be played either solo or as a cooperative game for two players, with the latter requiring players to combine forces to take down enemies and a higher-health boss together.

After the initial sleeving step, setting up the remainder of Unstoppable is pretty straightforward. You start by selecting one of four characters, each with three unique cards. These cards are combined with seven additional starting cards that are used by all four characters to make your initial deck of 10 cards.

Each character features unique cards from two of the game’s four factions: Council, Junker, Silver, and Viren. As with most deck-building games, these factions all have synergies, like Silver cards activating special abilities if another Silver card is in play, or Junker cards incentivizing you to buy and attach upgrades to your cards. While I didn’t feel any of the characters had a real distinct “identity” per se (since they only include three unique starting cards), the included factions help to nudge you in the right direction if you’re not familiar with building synergistic decks.

Once you’ve chosen your character, you’ll need to choose a boss to pit them against. Unstoppable includes three unique boss encounters, each with very different mechanics.

The first boss the rulebook recommends you play against is The Harbinger. This massive, tentacled horror features a deck of acolytes that inject themselves into your deck as you level up to accelerate the difficulty. However, defeating these acolytes are the only way to deal damage to The Harbinger since you can’t deal damage directly, so you’ll quickly develop a love-hate relationship with these cards.

The Triumvirate is a shady crime syndicate that operates across the three planets of Ceres II, Virenos, and Mithras. Unlike The Harbinger, you can attack the Triumvirate directly. But, instead of fighting a single, large boss, you’ll need to take out at least two of the syndicate’s smaller operations before you can bring down the “main” boss and secure victory. Each operation has its own health pool and unique positive effect that triggers upon defeat, allowing you to choose the order in which you fight each one based on the current board scenario.

Duomo’s Menace is the third and final boss in the core box, although I found it to be the easiest overall. This is by far the most unique of the three, as it functions like a sort of “choose your own adventure” book with its deck of 22 numbered cards. Each card requires you to make a decision, which generally boils down to dealing a specific amount of damage or paying a varying amount of credits. Depending on how you resolve the situation, you’ll be presented with a potential reward for your efforts and be instructed to find and flip over another card from the deck featuring new instructions. Your outcomes will eventually lead to a boss of sorts, posing a distinct challenge that will surely test your deck’s full capabilities. If you manage to defeat the boss, you’ll get one of multiple different endings and be crowned the winner.

The last part of the initial setup includes putting together the threat deck (this is dictated by which boss you’re facing), placing the core cards in six face-up piles based on their level, and flipping over six upgrades to feature in the shop. Now you’re ready to begin.

Each turn in Unstoppable is broken down into five unique phases: the Upkeep phase, Draft phase, Main phase, Threat phase, and Cleanup phase. You’ll take as many turns as needed before you either defeat the scenario boss or are overcome by one of the game’s loss conditions. But, with each turn, the marker inches closer to the end of the danger track, creating a constant sense of tension and urgency.

Unstoppable is unlike any deck-building card game I’ve ever played for a multitude of reasons, but by far the most unorthodox difference is that there’s no card draw. What’s that you say? No drawing cards in a deck-building game? How does that even work? With a few hard lessons, that’s how.

I should clarify, each round includes a drafting phase, during which you select a card from one of the six piles based on your level, and pairing it with one of the face-down threat cards to create a new, double-sided card that’s added to your hand. So, there is some form of card draw, but it’s not reliable if you’re looking to execute specific synergies.

In order to cycle the cards in your preconstructed deck back into your hand, you must first defeat the threat on the opposite side using what’s available in your hand. This is where the double-sided nature of the sleeved cards comes into play, and what really makes Unstoppable a unique beast. The core side of each card features something to help you deal with the enemies in play, while the threat side features an assortment of different enemies that you’ll eventually face. With the starter cards, these are very predictable, low-danger enemies for the most part. But, as you complete each round and add a new card to your deck, the threats on the backside become a mystery that won’t rear its ugly head until later.

There are two main types of core cards in Unstoppable: Ally cards and Tactic cards. Like most deck-building games, each card has a cost to play from your hand. Here, that cost is Action Points, and you start each turn with three. Ally cards are played to your board and can activate unique abilities each turn, whether that’s dealing damage, healing you, or providing armor, just to name a few. Tactic cards, on the other hand, are single-use abilities that generally make a big splash when played, but are discarded at the end of the turn. While un-upgraded allies may not swing the game as much as a good Tactic ability, they provide consistent benefits across multiple turns, making them essential to invest in early.

One of the core concepts in Unstoppable is enhancing your cards (and hero, indirectly) by purchasing upgrades from the shop. As previously mentioned, this is done by physically adding another card to the sleeve, in between the core card and threat. Upgrade cards feature a unique shape with an ability on either an upper or lower tab, allowing you to add a total of two upgrades to a single card without the effects overlapping. These abilities range from increasing damage output, gaining armor, reducing the cost to play your cards, and more. But, each upgrade features an effect on the back, too, which adds an entirely new layer to this game that you’ll need to plan for.

Because the cards in Unstoppable are double-sided, upgrades apply to both the core side and the threat side. Typically the better the effect you gain, the more powerful the enemy becomes, too. This poses an interesting challenge that you’ll grapple with throughout each run. Do you take the strong upgrade now to deal with the enemies on the board, knowing you’ll have an even bigger threat to worry about next round, or do you mitigate what you can and sacrifice a bit of health? These juicy decisions are where Unstoppable really shines.

Remember how I mentioned the threats on the backside of the starting cards weren’t very dangerous? Well, that’s true for the first few rounds, but they start to scale in power as the danger track advances, and can very quickly pose a serious threat if you’re not managing your resources well. Thankfully, there are multiple ways to remove cards from your deck permanently in Unstoppable. Deck-building conoisseurs know that culling your deck is an important strategy already, as it allows you to reach your best cards and combos more quickly. But, in Unstoppable it’s doubly important because it also allows you to remove a serious threat that may have gotten out of hand.

One way to stay ahead of the numerous threats you’ll face is by leveling up. This happens when you defeat all of the threats in your deck, and allows you to access higher-level core cards during subsequent draft phases. As you level up, the cards get significantly more powerful, allowing you to more effectively deal with threats. Some card abilities even allow you to “train” a bit, which temporarily increases the cards you can draft from, allowing you to nab some higher-level allies or abilities early.

But leveling up is a double-edged sword. The moment you level up, you must discard all allies and tactics in play, reduce your hand to three cards, then reshuffle your entire deck and create a new set of threats to deal with. This means you’re extremely vulnerable the turn immediately following a level-up, as you’re stuck with just the cards in your hand (which may be zero, depending on when you triggered the level-up sequence) to deal with the upcoming threats. Not to mention, you don’t have any allies left on the board and have to play them again.

This is the only sequence of the game that feels like it goes against the idea of becoming this “unstoppable” hero, and the part that I enjoyed the least, surprisingly. Leveling up should feel awesome each time, but more often than not, I was left in a position where I was staring down a menacing group of enemies while having to make due with scraps.

This game relies heavily on momentum, and once you fall behind, it’s really difficult to make it up. As you play more, you’ll understand it’s not always ideal to play every card you can each turn. Contrary to most deck-building games, the concept of “mana efficiency,” or using all of your available resources, doesn’t really apply to Unstoppable, in large part due to the lack of true card draw.

Outside of the mechanics, the story and atmosphere didn’t land for me. I’m a big fan of the neo-dystopian Cyberpunk aesthetic; from the neon-soaked streets to the seedy characters decked out in questionable implants and modifications, something about it just pulls me in.

At first glance, Unstoppable’s aesthetic seemed like it was right up my alley, but after trying to immerse myself in its universe, everything just felt a bit generic. Cool artwork aside, most enemies failed to really stand out as more than just a punching bag with the occasional trait slapped on, like Taunt, which requires you to deal with them first, or Fast, which allows more than the standard three enemies to flood the battlefield during a given turn.

Even with a separate story booklet providing some background on the characters, enemies, factions, and planets, none of my playthroughs ever reached the thematic highs of some other deck-builders like Marvel Champions or Arkham Horror LCG.

Some of my more minor gripes have to do with the shapes of the different cards and overall fiddly-ness of the upgrade system. For the core cards and threat cards, I didn’t really find them to be an issue, largely because they were sleeved and could be shuffled easily. But, the upgrade cards and unsleeved core cards are not very easy to shuffle as the cutouts and tabs always seemed to catch on one another – no matter how you rotate them – and I always felt like I was going to bend or damage the cards. This issue is compounded by the fact that you have to shuffle seven of these oddly-shaped decks before starting each game. And when you’re all done playing, you have to go back through each one of your sleeved cards to check for and remove any upgrades before you can play again.

But there’s just something so satisfying about discovering broken synergies and perusing the upgrade shop all while carefully planning out the perfect sequence of events as you try to work through the logic puzzle on the table each turn. Unstoppable’s core gameplay loop is just too damn good, and one that I’ll look forward to each time it hits my table.

Where to Buy Unstoppable

More Solo Board Games We Recommend

Matthew Adler has written for IGN since 2019 covering all things gaming, tech, tabletop games, and more. You can follow him on the site formerly known as Twitter @MatthewAdler and watch him stream on Twitch.