Ravensburger keeps expanding the Horrified universe, and this time it takes players into the legendary mists of Barovia, the Transylvanian-flavored setting Wizards of the Coast built for Dungeons & Dragons. Designed by Peter Lee, a veteran of over a dozen D&D-themed games including Lords of Waterdeep and Castle Ravenloft, and Nick Tourville this entry brings a familiar hand to unfamiliar territory.
If you know the classic monster movie version of Horrified, the bones here will feel familiar. The question isn’t really whether the system works (it does) but whether Ravenloft earns its spot as a standalone release rather than just reskinned content for existing fans. The game plays in about an hour with 4 players.
Gameplay Overview:
Like the rest of the series, this is a cooperative, pick-up and deliver, beat the clock game for one to five players. On your turn, you get four action points to spend moving around the board, picking up items, guiding villagers to safety, or confronting a monster. This version also introduces a new action option: roll the d20 for a chance at turn based bonuses when advancing a challenge or defeating a monster.
After every hero’s turn, the monster phase kicks in. You draw and place the indicated number of items; you may place a villager on the board, and you draw a card that dictates where the monsters move and who they target. The terror track ticks up as both heroes and villagers are attacked, adding real tension the longer you take.
Each of the four monsters (Strahd, the Carrionette, Baba Lysaga, and the Gulthias Tree) has its own unique defeat condition, so you’re not just rolling dice at a health bar. You might need to collect specific items and combine them in the right location, or work through a small multi-step puzzle tied to that monster’s lore before you can finally drive a stake through it, figuratively speaking, for most of them anyway.
Gameplay Experience:
The theme comes through strongly. Fans of Ravenloft or Gothic horror in general will find plenty to sink their teeth into with the atmosphere, even if the core mechanics aren’t reinventing anything. There’s some luck baked in through dice and card draws, but you still have real agency in how you plan your moves. The new d20 bonus roll is a nice temptation on your turn. That said, I’ve heard from other Horrified players that this entry leans a bit more on luck than some of the earlier releases in the series. I also heard that the villagers are all out on the board in earlier versions and that having villagers come out on the board throughout gameplay balances the mechanic in this latest version.
Ravenloft brings variable difficulty depending on which and how many monsters you’re facing. No two plays feel identical, though after several plays you will have seen all of the cards. Strahd himself is the crown jewel encounter, and going up against the Dark Lord of Barovia carries a different weight than the others; there’s a real sense that he’s toying with you rather than just attacking. The Tarokka pieces add light thematic color to shape your path to Strahd’s defeat. The addition of the d20 does bring an albeit light D&D spin to the game as you roll for hits when attempting to move forward a monster challenge or defeat.
There’s real tension in this game, and defeating the monsters while trying to rescue villagers is not an easy task. During my first playthrough, we were defeated by the terror track. During my third play, with four players and going up against a more difficult monster combination, we nearly ran out of the monster deck entirely. Both end game triggers added a layer of tension while we scrambled to close out our defeat conditions before the mists closed in on us for good.
Solo play holds up well here too. It runs on the same core rules as multiplayer, and if anything, you may have an easier time evading monsters when you’re not splitting attention across teammates, no one else’s mistakes to leave you exposed to a bite in the dark.
I’m a fan of co-ops despite the occasional one-player drives downside. Here, something about the hero/monster turn phases and actions helped minimize the effect, and I didn’t notice any strong takeover attempts. In fact, it was the strong teamwork that helped us pull out the victories.
Where the experience really falters is production. The production quality feels like a step down for Ravensburger, with misspellings, a hard-to-read font, and inconsistencies between the player boards and the rulebook. For a company with this much production experience, I was very disappointed.
Final Thoughts:
Did the world need a new Horrified with new IP slapped on? Probably not. If you already own another Horrified title, this may feel more like reskinned familiarity than a must-have expansion. But if this is your first entry into the series like it was mine, you’ll find an approachable, entertaining game that has real bite to it.
Final Score: 3.5 Stars – Production failures caused early frustration for what was an otherwise solid and fun game.
Hits:
• Strong Barovia/Ravenloft theming throughout
• Unique, puzzle-like defeat conditions for each monster
• Variable monster difficulty keeps replays fresh, including genuine tension
• Plenty of player agency despite the luck elements
Misses:
• Production quality below Ravensburger’s usual standard (misspellings, font legibility, board/rulebook inconsistencies)
• Doesn’t feel essential if you already own a Horrified title
