Deep Thoughts

The Crew: The Quest for Planet Nine was a true phenomenon in board gaming that spread throughout 2019 and 2020. Its compelling cooperative gameplay and low price point ensured that copies would spread to basically anyone who would enjoy it, and it took a well-deserved place in the Top 100 games at BoardGameGeek. Now there's a sequel, The Crew: Mission Deep Sea. And it is another triumph.

Thematically, Mission Deep Sea switches from a peril-ridden journey through outer space to a peril-ridden journey beneath the ocean. How much the story even matters in these games will vary from gaming group to gaming group. Mechanically, the skeleton of the game is the same: you deal a custom 40-card deck evenly among the players (containing cards 1-9 in four suits/colors, and 1-4 in a unique suit that trumps everything). You are then tasked with goals collectively, for certain players to win certain tricks in traditional "I lead, everyone follows suit if possible" gameplay.

In The Quest for Planet Nine, a given player goal was generally to win specific cards from the deck in the tricks they took. The game was such a runaway hit that additional "missions" were released online, giving players increasingly bizarre goals to pursue. Mission Deep Sea is passed that baton, and picks it up wonderfully. It comes with a secondary deck of cards showing tasks of varying difficulties: goals to win specific numbers of tricks, to win multiple cards of particular suits (often in particular numbers), to avoid ever having to lead a specific suit, to win certain numbers of tricks relative to other players, and more.

These tasks make the game somewhat less friendly to brand new players, especially players who don't have a background in Hearts, Spades, Bridge, or some other trick-based game. If you're teaching non-gamers to play, you'll want to start with the original Quest for Planet Nine. But for experienced gamers, Mission Deep Sea is a marvelous step up. The goals here are very well-designed to encourage even more cooperation among the players. "That player needs to win only 1 trick, so now that she's got it, I need to step up to make sure she doesn't win any more." "That player wants an equal number of yellow and pink cards overall, so I need to help keep count and be ready to throw cards that help maintain balance where I can."

The Quest for Planet Nine is still fun, and very replayable. But Mission Deep Sea is even more replayable. Even if you've succeeded at all the scenarios presented in the storybook (and my group has), you can start over again (just like we did with the original game) and have a completely new experience (more so than the original) as new tasks from the deck mix in different combinations to present different challenges. I feel it would be very hard to play this game out... unless you play it so much that you simply need some variety in your gaming. (I could see that happening.)

I encouraged just about anyone who likes games to play The Crew: The Quest for Planet Nine. And anyone who liked that is sure to love The Crew: Mission Deep Sea. I give it an unreserved grade A. Designer Thomas Sing has pulled off the rare feat of delivering a sequel that satisfies just as much as -- even surpasses -- the original.