Wingspan: Quiet, Gorgeous, and Barely Any Interaction

Some games are loud. Wingspan is the other kind. After a while without it, we finally had the time to play it again and remembered why it’s on our shelf: such a silent and wonderful game.

It’s also a very polite one. Depending on who you ask at our table, that’s either its charm or its problem.

What is Wingspan?

You’re a bird enthusiast attracting birds to your wildlife preserve. Every bird is a card, there are 170 different ones, and each has its own illustration. Your preserve has three habitats, forest, grassland and wetland, and the birds you place there power up what you can do on later turns.

Wingspan was designed by Elizabeth Hargrave and published by Stonemaier Games in 2019. It plays 1 to 5 players in 40 to 70 minutes and won the 2019 Kennerspiel des Jahres. Our box says 10+.

How it plays

On your turn, you either play a bird or use one of your three habitats.

• Forest: gain food. You take food dice from a birdfeeder dice tower, one of the loveliest components.
• Grassland: lay eggs. Eggs score points and pay for more birds.
• Wetland: draw cards. More birds to choose from.
• The engine. Each bird you add to a habitat makes that habitat’s action stronger, and some birds trigger their own powers whenever you use their row.

After four rounds, you score your birds, round goals, bonus cards, eggs, and food and cards stored on your birds. There’s also a solo mode against an automated opponent, the Automa. This review doesn’t cover it.

Quiet in the best way

“Silent” is the word we keep coming back to. Wingspan isn’t a game of trash talk and big reveals. It’s a game of building something pretty, one bird at a time, while the table goes quiet around you. After a break, that calm felt wonderful again.

The cards deserve a mention, too. When we played Harmonies, we noticed how thin its cards felt. Wingspan’s are much better, in the same league as Everdell’s. In a game that lives on its cards, that matters.

Still great with two

Here’s where my daughter and I disagree. When we played Wingspan Asia in its two-player Duet mode, she said: “I like this better than the regular Wingspan!” My take: interesting twist, but I still enjoy the standard two-player game just as much.

So yes, regular Wingspan works for two. We hear that a lot in the community, too: it plays perfectly fine with two, with less waiting than at higher counts.

The catch: birdwatching side by side

Wingspan’s politeness has a price. You mostly build your own engine next to someone else’s. Interaction is limited to grabbing the food die or bird card someone else wanted, and to the round goals. Some feel that two players get much less out of each other’s moves than four do.

For me, that’s part of the charm. For my daughter, Duet mode’s extra bite wins. If your family likes to fight over every inch, know that before you buy.

Our other sting is a softer one: Wingspan sometimes sits on the shelf for a while before it comes back. When it does, it’s a silent, wonderful evening all over again.

A word on the European Expansion

In our family ratings, the European Expansion gets a 9, a point above the base game. That’s as far as our own verdict goes here; this review is about the base box.

The facts: it adds 81 new birds, 5 bonus cards and 5 goal tiles, and it needs the base game. New powers include birds that trigger at the end of each round, birds that interact with other players, and birds that like excess cards or food. A complaint you hear now and then: in such a big deck, the new birds don’t show up as often as you’d like.

If you’re comparing expansions: to us, the Asian birds add less than other Wingspan expansions. The European and Oceania expansions add more unique powers at a lower price. We hear that a lot in the community, too.

Wingspan, Wingspan Asia or Everdell?

Wingspan fans often end up with Everdell too, and we enjoy both. Our Everdell review has the details on the critters.

Wingspan with kids

When our older daughter was eight, Wingspan was already one of her games, next to Everdell and 7 Wonders Duel. And my daughter knows regular Wingspan well enough to have a strong opinion about it compared to Duet mode.

We hear similar things in the community. Kids of 7 and 9 often catch on quickly after some help with their first turns, and it helps to learn the game with another adult first. Even younger kids from around five enjoy the components and learn about birds along the way. The first few turns are confusing, though, before the game clicks.

The low conflict helps here. Nobody attacks your birds, so a kid who hates losing can still build something they’re proud of. That works for any mixed table: parents and kids, grandparents, roommates, families of all kinds.

What we hear in the community

The artwork, the components and how accessible it is get wide praise, especially the illustrated birds, the egg miniatures and the dice tower. Many like the range of strategic options. Some also call the game slightly overrated and a bit too reliant on luck from the feeder and the card draws.

The other common criticisms: little player interaction, and an egg-laying strategy that some find too strong late in the game. None of that stopped it from becoming a huge success, with over 2.6 million copies sold.

Our verdict

If you want a calm, beautiful game for a family table or for two, get Wingspan. It works with kids who can follow a few coached turns, it’s great with two, and it’s simply lovely to look at. Add the European Expansion when you want more birds.

If your table thrives on direct conflict, look elsewhere, or at least look at Wingspan Asia’s Duet mode. Regular Wingspan is a birdwatching trip, not a fight over the binoculars.