Direwild is a deck-builder and dungeon-crawler, where heroic “Animists” can magically combine adorable animals or fantastic beasts together to help battle the evil Karn and his minions. The game supports 1-4 players with cooperative play. You’ll explore three unique environments, collecting treasure and battling minions while improving your deck enough to face Karn.

The very first thing that makes Direwild appealing is the friendly art design. Although the prospect of mashing different animals together sounds off-putting at first, this game was positively made for animal-lovers. 

There are plenty of mythological creatures and original designs, but the normal animals are unbelievably cute and filled with so much personality. 

They are also blanketed with flavor text, which leads to the next feature that has truly distinguished Direwild: some of the most charming wit in any board game. Period. Each little animal has flavor text that either creatively represents its nature, or is totally unrelated in the most hilarious way.

Beyond those features, you will probably find that Direwild is fairly short on technical surprises. All of its mechanics are expected, and some of them feel a little broken. 

Although the game feels pretty casual at first, the final battle with Karn has a steep difficulty curve. Also, the Enemy AI cards can sometimes activate and pin players down very early, preventing any deck building. 

The environments are somewhat simple, with just a few walls here and there, and they don’t feel very immersive. The most compelling thing about them is that minions have a set path until they’re awakened.

However, the heroes themselves offer a solid amount of variety. Their abilities are unique enough that you will want to revisit Direwild just to try out different builds. And if you’re looking for an old school RPG experience, this is a great cooperative game if you don’t have a dungeon master on hand, akin to Journeys in Middle-earth.

Final Thoughts

Direwild may have many familiar mechanics, but it makes the most of its animal theme with sparkling humor. This is a cozy game that should appeal to fans of the genre, offering nifty heroes for some old school dungeon crawls. It is especially delightful as a cooperative experience.

Score: 7.5 / 10