Spirit Island: The Co-op Game, Horizons and the Expansions

What Spirit Island is

Spirit Island is a cooperative game. All the players are on one team, and the game itself is the opponent. Each of you is a spirit of the island, with its own panel of powers. Invaders arrive by sea, explore the land, build towns and cities, and leave blight behind. Your job is to scare them off before the island is ruined.

The Invaders aren't a player. They follow a deck of cards and a fixed set of steps, so nobody at the table has to play the bad guy. That's one of the things I like about the design. Nobody gets stuck being the villain, and nobody has to make the island lose on purpose.

The short list, from the Spirit Island listing and Greater Than Games' rulebook:

• Players: 1 to 4, solo mode listed
• Ages: 14+ on the listing
• Play time: not on the listing; the rulebook says about 90 to 120 minutes once you know the game
• Contents on the listing: 8 spirits
• Co-op: yes, everyone wins or loses together
• Expansion: no, it's the base game

The rulebook is upfront about weight. It calls the game complex, with many moving parts, and it gives first-time players a simpler setup. I'd rather read that on page 3 than find it out on turn 3.

How Spirit Island plays

The rules here are in my own words, from the Spirit Island core rulebook that Greater Than Games links on its product page. Some steps have more detail than I can fit here, and the rulebook's examples are worth reading at the table.

Setup, in short

1. Build the island from the modular boards, one per player.
2. Each player picks a spirit, takes its panel and its starting power cards, and places its presence on the board.
3. Set up the fear deck, the Invader deck and the blight pool on the Invader board.
4. Put the starting Invaders, Dahan and blight on the island, as printed on each board.

For a first game, the rulebook suggests one of four low-complexity spirits, a power progression card so new powers come in a set order, the printed blight space instead of a Blight card, and no adversary or scenario. Take every one of those suggestions. Adversaries and scenarios add difficulty and rules, and you can add them later.

A turn: five phases

Each turn runs in the same order:

1. Spirit Phase. Every spirit grows, gains energy and picks the power cards to play this turn.
2. Fast Power Phase. Resolve the powers marked fast.
3. Invader Phase. The Invaders act.
4. Slow Power Phase. Resolve the powers marked slow.
5. Time Passes. Discard played cards, clear damage, get ready for the next turn.

All players act at the same time within each phase. The rulebook says table talk is allowed, and it's probably needed to win. This is a game where you should talk out loud.

The Spirit Phase

Each spirit does three things in order. First it grows: pick one of the growth options on the panel, which might add presence to the board, gain energy or bring back used cards. Then it gains energy, set by the highest uncovered number on its energy track. Then it plays power cards, up to the limit on its card-play track, and pays for all of them now, even the slow ones.

The rulebook also lets any player put a time limit on choosing cards. It points out that slow-moving earth spirits might otherwise take a few centuries. I have played with people who would.

The Invader Phase

This is where the island fights back against you, or rather where the Invaders do their work. It runs in steps:

• Blighted Island: only once the Blight card has flipped
• Fear: resolve any fear cards you earned, in order
• Ravage: Invaders in the shown land type deal damage, 1 per Explorer, 2 per Town, 3 per City; 2 or more damage adds blight to the land, and surviving Dahan fight back
• Build: Invaders in the shown land type add a Town, or a City if Towns outnumber Cities there
• Explore: flip a new Invader card; Explorers land in matching lands next to the ocean or near a Town or City
• Advance: slide the Invader cards along, so this turn's Explore becomes next turn's Build, and so on

The card track is the clever part. You can see where the Invaders will build next turn and ravage the turn after. Most of the game is getting there first.

Fear and how you win

Destroying a Town makes 1 fear, and a City makes 2. Some powers make fear directly. Enough fear earns a fear card, and earned fear cards push the Invaders up the terror levels. Each level makes winning easier:

• Terror Level 1: no Invaders left on the island
• Terror Level 2: no Towns or Cities left
• Terror Level 3: no Cities left

Meet the current condition at any time and you win on the spot. Get through the whole fear deck and you win too.

How you lose

There are three ways, and the rulebook lists them plainly:

• The last blight comes off the Blight card, and its instructions usually say you lose.
• Any spirit has no presence left on the island.
• You need to draw an Invader card and the deck is empty. Time ran out.

That third one keeps the game honest. You can't play slow and safe forever. The deck is a clock.

Lucho's take: "Fast powers before the Invaders, slow powers after. That's a shop rule. Quick fix before lunch, the big job after."

Spirit Island editions on Amazon US right now

Our data lists 5 Spirit Island boxes on Amazon US as of October 2026, all from Greater Than Games. Two are complete games and three are expansions.

The two complete games

• Spirit Island: 1 to 4 players, ages 14+, solo mode, 8 spirits listed, the base game
• Horizons of Spirit Island: 1 to 3 players, ages 14+ on the listing, solo mode, 5 spirits listed, not an expansion

Horizons is the smaller box. Greater Than Games says you can start your Spirit Island collection with it or add its five spirits to an existing one, and that it works with the rest of the line. Its product page lists ages 12+ and 100 minutes. The Amazon listing says 14+, and we go by the higher number.

How to choose between them: if your group is never more than 3, Horizons covers you with a smaller box. If you sometimes have 4, or you think you'll buy expansions, the base game is the one every expansion listing names.

The three expansions

• Jagged Earth: 1 to 6 players, solo mode, 10 spirits and 2 adversaries listed, needs Spirit Island
• Feather and Flame: 1 to 4 players, solo mode, 4 spirits, 1 adversary, 5 aspect cards and 2 scenarios listed, needs Spirit Island
• Nature Incarnate: 8 spirits, Incarna tokens, 1 adversary and 2 scenarios listed, needs Spirit Island

Jagged Earth is the box that takes the game past 4 players. Its listing says 1 to 6, and Greater Than Games' page says the same and that a copy of Spirit Island is required.

Nature Incarnate's listing names Spirit Island as the base game. Greater Than Games' product page goes further: it says both Spirit Island and Jagged Earth are required. Read that before you buy it as a first expansion.

An adversary, in Spirit Island terms, is a set of rules that makes the Invaders tougher in a specific way. A scenario changes the setup or the goal for one game. Aspect cards change how an existing spirit plays. None of these make the game easier.

Which box fits your table

The rulebook's own advice points one way here: learn the base game first. The base box already lists 8 spirits, and the beginner settings leave adversaries and scenarios out until your group is ready. Each expansion adds spirits and more ways to raise the difficulty. That's great once your group has won and lost a few times. Before then it's more rules on top of rules you haven't learned yet.

A few matches, from the listings:

• A first copy for 1 to 4 players: Spirit Island, ages 14+
• A smaller first copy for up to 3: Horizons of Spirit Island, ages 14+ on the listing
• Groups of 5 or 6: add Jagged Earth to the base game
• A group that owns the base game and Jagged Earth: Nature Incarnate
• A group that owns the base game and wants a smaller add-on: Feather and Flame

One habit we'd add, and it's a house habit, not a printed rule: on a first game, keep the rulebook open to the turn order page in the middle of the table, and say each phase out loud before anyone acts.

Who should skip Spirit Island

Skip it if your group wants a short game. Plan around the 90 to 120 minutes the rulebook gives, and longer while you learn.

Skip it, too, if one player at your table tends to run everyone else's turn. Co-op games are open-information games, and a table where one person decides every move turns into one person playing while three watch. Talk about that before the first game, not during it.

And skip it for players under 14, the age on the listing. The reading load on each spirit panel and power card is real, and the decisions stack up fast.

If you like Spirit Island, look at these

Pages chosen by what they share with Spirit Island: co-op play, a solo mode or a long game that rewards planning.

• Pandemic: a shorter co-op where the board spreads trouble every turn
• Gloomhaven: a co-op campaign with a solo mode
• Eldritch Horror: a long co-op for 1 to 8
• Strategy board games: the wider shelf, longest games first

Read your spirit panel twice, play your fast powers, and watch the Build space.