Gordon Calleja. Art by Edu Valls. Mighty Boards & Taverna Ludica Games, 2019.
1–4 players | 90–180 minutes | Age 14+
Game Review by Diana Dörfling
Posthuman Saga is a post-apocalyptic adventure game where you take on the role of one of the last human survivors, sent out from the safety of the last human stronghold to explore the dangerous, mutant-filled world. You can play solo, go head-to-head with 2-4 players in a competitive mode, or team up in a team-vs-team setup where two teams of two players share a map and compete for control.
The game mixes auction, resource management, and push-your-luck mechanics. You will bid on terrain tiles and scavenger tokens to build your own territory, all while trying to survive the ever-present threat of mutants and other dangers. Combat is card-based, where quick tactical decisions can mean the difference between life and death. Mutation plays a big role here. It can be a blessing or a curse, depending on how it unfolds.
As you explore the world, you will face narrative-driven events that add new layers to your journey. Every decision counts, and you will earn points through a mix of secret missions and connecting scavenge sites to create valuable paths. It is all about balancing your survival with your strategic goals, and things can get tense fast.
One of the most interesting parts of the game is the moral choices it forces you to make. You can choose to hunt mutants for rewards and experience, or you can take a pacifist route. But even that comes with risks. Mutating yourself in the process could change the course of your journey.
While the game is all about competing for victory points, it is set in a world where everyone shares the same goals: finding survivors and searching for valuable resources. This shared mission sometimes feels a bit odd, given the competitive nature of the game. But it does give you room to reflect on the complex world the game builds, especially when it comes to the mutant rebellion, genetic modification, and the environmental issues woven into the narrative.
Posthuman Saga does a lot of world-building, blending social justice themes with climate and environmental issues, but it can take a bit to get fully invested in the story. It is definitely a game that is best suited to players who are drawn to these heavy themes. If you are looking for a game that mixes strategy with deep, thought-provoking narratives about survival, power, and ethics, this could be just what you are looking for. But it is also a game that challenges you to think about the consequences of human actions, making it more than just a standard post-apocalyptic adventure.
Analysis from the Manchester Game Centre Ecogames workshop series
Content written by Isabelle Introna, Au San Lam, and Chloé Wake.
Posthuman Saga is a post-apocalyptic adventure game in which players take the role of the last human survivors, dispatched from a final stronghold to explore a dangerous, mutant-filled world. Play combines terrain tile bidding, resource management, push-your-luck, and card-based combat mechanics. Players construct individual territories, complete secret missions, and accrue victory points by connecting scavenge sites — competing against one another despite nominally sharing the same organisational goals of reuniting survivor colonies and recovering resources. The game’s setting, established through extensive pre-game backstory, depicts a near-future Europe in which the legalisation of genetic editing produced a new class of mutated humans; subjected to oppression, a mutant uprising eventually resulted in human civilisation’s collapse. Players navigate this world through a terrain system of randomised encounters, with mutation functioning as both a risk and a resource: characters who accumulate sufficient mutations may defect to join the posthuman faction, turning against other players.
Posthuman Saga raises productive questions about the relationship between systemic ecological collapse and social justice, though its mechanics sit in tension with its thematic ambitions in ways that invite critical discussion. The game’s most significant structural problem, identified by our play session participants, is the mismatch between its competitive victory-point system and its collaborative story premise: players serve the same organisation toward the same goals, yet the rules incentivise individual competition rather than solidarity. This mechanical contradiction undermines the game’s implicit argument about collective survival in a damaged world. More critically, the non-human world, which includes mutants and objects, is positioned almost entirely as a non-playable backdrop against which human characters act, whether extractively or violently. As one play session participant observed, the game risks replicating the ecophobic logic it appears to interrogate: nature and the posthuman are rendered as antagonists or resources, with human player characters as the default initiators of violence. The option to play a pacifist route, while present, is neither structurally rewarded nor discouraged in ways that generate meaningful ethical reflection. The narrative framing of mutant rebellion as the consequence of oppression rather than genetic modification itself is potentially the game’s most interesting ecological move, suggesting that environmental collapse is inseparable from political and social injustice, but this argument is largely quarantined in the backstory and does not significantly shape gameplay. The game’s substantial world-building investment means it is likely to engage most productively with players already committed to its themes; as a play session participant noted, this risks preaching to the converted. Despite these limitations, Posthuman Saga‘s staging of human/non-human rights through the lens of mutation and bodily transformation offers a distinctive, if underrealised, contribution to games that explore the politics of the Anthropocene.
Developed from notes recorded during the Manchester Game Centre ecogame play sessions, November 2023 and November 2024.
References
Estok, S. 2018. The Ecophobia Hypothesis. London: Routledge.