Wingspan Review

Intro

Elizabeth Hargrave's Wingspan swooped onto the scene in 2019 and immediately captured hearts with its gorgeous bird-themed engine building. This isn't your typical fantasy adventure or space conquest game. Instead, you're playing as bird enthusiasts building habitats and attracting feathered friends to your wildlife preserves.

The game works beautifully with 1-5 players, though it really shines with 3. Expect about 70 minutes for a full game, maybe a bit longer your first few times through. With an 8.02 rating on BoardGameGeek, it's clearly struck a chord with players. The complexity sits in that sweet spot where newcomers can learn it without too much trouble, but there's enough meat to keep strategy fans engaged.

What makes Wingspan special isn't just its theme. Sure, the bird artwork is stunning, but underneath lies a clever card-driven engine builder that won the Kennerspiel des Jahres and swept the Golden Geek Awards in 2019.

How It Plays

Each player starts with a personal board showing three habitats: forest, grassland, and wetlands. These aren't just pretty pictures. They're your action spaces, and they get stronger as you add birds to them.

On your turn, you pick one of four actions. You can gain food by rolling dice in the adorable birdfeeder dice tower, lay eggs on your birds, draw bird cards from the deck or display, or play a bird card from your hand. Each action gets more powerful as you build up the corresponding habitat.

Here's where it gets clever. When you take an action, you place your action cube on the leftmost empty spot in that habitat row. Then you activate every bird to the right of that cube. Early in the game, you're not activating much. But as you add birds, those action chains become incredibly satisfying.

Birds cost food and sometimes eggs to play, but they give you ongoing benefits. Some birds let you draw extra cards when you take the draw action. Others give you bonus food or eggs. The best birds create cascading combinations that make every turn feel productive.

The game runs exactly four rounds, with each round giving you fewer action cubes to spend. Round one gives you eight actions, but by round four you're down to five. This creates natural tension as your engine gets stronger but your time gets shorter.

Highlights

The production quality is absolutely top-notch. Those custom dice, the colorful wooden eggs, the dice tower that doubles as a bird feeder. Every component feels intentional. The bird cards themselves are works of art, featuring real species with educational tidbits about wingspan, habitat, and diet.

Engine building games can sometimes feel abstract, but Wingspan's theme makes perfect sense. Of course forest birds eat different food than wetland birds. Of course you need eggs to expand your bird population. The mechanics and theme work together instead of fighting each other.

The solo mode deserves special mention. The Automa opponent creates genuine tension without being overly fiddly. It's one of the better solo implementations out there, and the Swift-Start promo pack included in recent printings makes learning even smoother.

What really impresses me is how the game scales tension. Early turns feel a bit slow as you're building your foundation, but the pace accelerates beautifully. By the final round, you're orchestrating these amazing chains of bird powers that feel both strategic and thematically satisfying.

The educational aspect sneaks up on you too. You'll find yourself learning about bird habitats and behaviors without realizing it. My kids have started spotting birds from the game during our nature walks.

Criticisms

The biggest complaint about Wingspan is the luck factor. Sometimes the bird cards you need just don't show up, or the dice refuse to give you the right food tokens. You can mitigate this with smart play, but there are definitely games where one player gets better card draws and runs away with it. For players who prefer pure strategy, this randomness can be frustrating.

The game also suffers from some runaway leader problems. If someone gets their engine humming early while others struggle, it can be hard to catch up. The person who draws powerful birds in round one often has a significant advantage that compounds throughout the game. There are catch-up mechanisms, but they don't always feel sufficient.

Finally, while the theme is refreshing, some players find the gameplay a bit multiplayer solitaire. You're mostly focused on building your own bird tableau with minimal direct interaction. The competition comes from racing for limited bird cards and food, but you're not actively messing with other players' plans. If you love games with lots of player conflict, Wingspan might feel too gentle.

Conclusion

Wingspan hits that rare sweet spot where accessibility meets depth, beautiful production meets solid gameplay, and educational value meets pure fun. It's perfect for families looking to step up from gateway games, strategy gamers who appreciate something more relaxing, and anyone who enjoys engine builders with gorgeous themes.

The solo mode makes it ideal for single players, while the smooth scaling keeps it engaging at all player counts. If you can live with some card luck and prefer building to battling, Wingspan deserves a spot in your collection. It's that special game that looks beautiful on the table, teaches you something new, and leaves everyone feeling satisfied rather than defeated.