When you hear space 4X and board games, you might think Twilight Imperium, Eclipse, or Space Empires 4X (I mean, it’s right there in the name). But those behemoths aren’t the last word on science fiction exploration and extermination. The games below let you explore, expand, exploit, and exterminate in different ways and at different lengths, each one finding its own place amid the giants above.
It’s a great time for space strategists, so if you’ve been looking to wage some fresh war among the stars, read on.
Simultaneous Play . . . in space!
A fast 4X is often promised and rarely delivered. Paring down the growth, conflict, and exploration in any 4X game is rife with risks. Cut too much and you’re left with something muddy, unsatisfying, and mercifully short. Refine just the right amount, though, and you’ll wind up with something like Last Light (Roy Cannaday), which covers all the right bases in under 90 minutes.
How does it achieve such sorcery?
Simultaneous play.
In Last Light, you’ll be taking up one of several asymmetric factions vying for the last bit of glowy goodness from a White Dwarf star. The struggle plays out through action cards, picked by each player separately and then carried out at the same time. You might move your fleet while your buddy and/or nemesis mines yummy resources. The player across the table could gain some new tech, cackling at their newfound abilities while you shift starships about. You’re always moving, never twiddling thumbs while another player walks through their twelve step plan for galactic domination. Similar to hand management games like Concordia, choosing which card and when to draw your hand back are core decisions, but you’ll always be making them, because Last Light refuses to slow down.
Combat plays out fast too, as it’s launched by a single action card, and only the side playing that card gets a chance to fire. What could be irksome instead adds some light bluffing to a speedy dance, where you’ll want to gauge whether the fleet on your doorstep has already played their command ships card, or if they might come blasting your way. If you think they will, holding your own command ships card, trying to time the play, will let you counter. From there it’s a fast die roll and boom, we’re on to the next round.
Last Light offers more than cards and combat, with a rotating board simulating orbiting planets. An inner and outer ring rotate at different rates, injecting dynamism into the board state. You can’t simply turtle up on some nebula with your guns bristling, as you’ll find new neighbors every six turns or so. There is no static sitting around here.
Which is good, as you’ll win by getting your VPs from gathering the titular Light. This involves darting around, making smart plays, and anticipating opposing moves to get to the right spots to score. That you’ll do all this on the simultaneous fly keeps adrenaline high, the table engaged, and everyone enjoying themselves.
If there’s a case against Last Light, it’s the same drawbacks that pock every simultaneous game. It’s harder to gauge the board state or rejigger a planned strategy when everyone’s moving at once. This isn’t Eclipse, where you’ll have plenty of time to mull counters to your opponent’s developing strategies. But Last Light won’t devour your day either. It’s a 4X for after school or with dessert. Beautiful, bold, and different.
Card Combat Done Right
If Last Light trims sci-fi 4X to the dynamic essentials, Fractal (Yann Hilaire, Romain Lesiuk, Bernardo Rippe) aims to add just enough flavor without stretching playtime out to monster levels. You’ll find familiar, almost entry-fee level, parts here, from sci-fi minis to asymmetric factions. You’ll also get
more attention to the setting, with in-depth faction lore coupling with an optional campaign to give Fractal a regular place on your table.
Playing Fractal well requires efficiency, puzzle-solving, and a dash of tactical acumen. You’ll score points primarily through objective cards, which often involve taking certain planets (hexes), ripping them away from opponents or keeping them from doing the same to you. Marching your interstellar marauders around the galaxy happens over four cycles, within which every player gets several actions, like recruiting new forces or bumping ships about. Timing when you’ll play those actions makes a big difference, as players can’t simply repeat the same move round after round.
Moving your ships in for a surprise assault after your opponent’s reinforced the wrong territory? Nice.
Fractal also eschews surprise by ditching dice for tactical combat cards, which leverage a loose rock-paper-scissors system and float into your hand by way of the forces you bring to bear. This makes fighting more a dance with your opponent, a question of which card they’ll play, whether you’ll counter it, or if they even have a counter to your favored choice. It’s a bluffing dance that leaves room for small ship upsets while keeping complaints about unfair rolls off the table.
Unique abilities abound too, and Fractal is a game, like Root, that benefits immensely from repeat plays. Even if you choose not to engage with the campaign, stuffed with unlocks and gameplay tweaks from mission to mission, expect later games with experienced players go down smoother than first plays. Otherwise, you might find Fractal competing with a clock in the same way as Eclipse or Twilight Imperium. If you’re planning to teach this game, I’d recommend giving the included Automa system a spin just to get your feet wet.
That’s not a negative, just an understanding of the depth at play here. Fractal will give you plenty of play, just be ready to grow with the game.
One last note here: Fractal forces conflict. Like Space Empires, you will smash up against opponents, and while that may seem obvious given the genre, other games in this genre give you options to avoid or minimize combat. There’s no real hiding in Fractal, and that’s to the game’s benefit.
We’re here to play together, after all, even if that means mashing big metal hulks together in outer space.
A Stuffed, Superb Euro-Style 4X
Mindclash Games has a habit of tying spectacular production with a strong commitment to theme. Whether it’s time travel in Anachrony or illusions in Trickerion, every round drips with decisions that make sense within the game’s world.
Voidfall (Nigel Buckle, Dávid Turczi) is no different, though its 4X world is filtered through a Euro-style lens. You won’t find buckets of dice here, as Voidfall, like Fractal, leverages card-based combat. It’s deterministic, letting players bluff or outsmart one another to victories rather than getting lucky and ruining a masterstroke.
What gives Voidfall a different spin is its emphasis on the Voidborn, a universal enemy that can be faced in solo or cooperative modes, giving the game flexibility to play with groups who want the 4X experience but without player elimination or negative conflict. That might seem anathema to the genre, but hey, maybe y’all just want to relax on a Friday night and crush some aliens together.
Is that so wrong?
Despite that premise, Voidfall isn’t a simple whack-a-xeno. Every game takes place over three cycles, each one crashing in with a game-warping galactic event, new scoring objectives, and a limited amount of time to deal with both. You’ll be playing focus cards to drive your actions, splaying out a menu of options under obvious names like ‘Conquest’ and ‘Development’, or more lofty ideals like ‘Prosperity. Those cards can lead to new techs, improving those warships you’ll be lumbering about, or maybe you’ll colonize a pristine planet and reap sweet, sweet, resources.
Voidfall packs all this under a sea of iconography and tight rules, making for a deep game that can be a big lift on the first play. It finds fleeter footing on subsequent adventures. Even so, this is an event game, and it comes packed with helpful scenarios with maps, suggested factions, and more to make sure you and your pals get the game you intend. There’s no big narrative campaign to contend with either, letting you explore this unique sci-fi sandbox with every game.
Touching on the scenario booklet again – with games like this, ones with lots of tiles and promises of endless random map replays, it’s nice to go into a multi-hour affair like Voidfall confident that the setup isn’t unbalanced. A player’s night isn’t torched just because the wrong random tiles landed around their home planet. Sure, you’re sacrificing a little mystery, but gaining a safe shot at a good time.
It’s a trade off I’d recommend trying if Voidfall lands on your table.
It’s a Great Time for 4X
We’re in a continued golden era for board games, with almost every genre getting new titles that innovate on older legends. Last Light trims down the clock with simultaneous play, keeping everyone engaged in a 4X that fits on a school night. Fractal embraces card-based combat and incentivizes the same, ensuring players don’t just make perfect planets in their own little corners. And Voidfall refines 4X through a euro lens while giving cooperative play a chance to shine.
With so many ways to play in space, all you have to do is pick your ship and blast off.
