Nowhere Prophet Review: Creative and Addictive Card Strategy

Nowhere Prophet is an exciting tactical card game, blending choice-based adventure elements with compelling strategy and some gorgeous design.

The independent gaming scene has excelled when it comes to allowing smaller studios to tell interesting stories in unique ways. There’s creativity to be found in limitation, particularly when using a mashup of a game genre and narrative that have not previously sat well together. Nowhere Prophet, from developer Sharkbomb Studios and publisher No More Robots, is a prime example of this.

Nowhere Prophet is a story of barren world, full of cyberpunk scrap metal and dusty, dystopian tones. It’s a tale that interweaves religious fervour and future technologies, all against a background of grim survival. In other words, it’s the kind of story that traditional game development would put firmly within action gameplay, but Nowhere Prophet is instead a card deck combat game.

Within this card-based strategy, Nowhere Prophet feels familiar. Other games have offered up tactical fun in the same manner, from the random selection of both unit cards and direct actions through to the turn-based manner of slugging it out with an opponent. Those who have played the likes of Hearthstone will fit right in, even if they have to go a little more sci-fi this time around.

The card battles are framed in a larger overworld ripe with exploration. The player is able to travel across a map on branching routes, heading towards an exit for each stretch of the land while visiting the most interesting markers along the way to try and grab vital resources. Structurally, this makes it similar in feel to FTL: Faster Than Light, particularly when Nowhere Prophet’s permadeath mechanics come into play. If you die in the game you go back to the start, for another, slightly different journey to start again.

The mixture of permanent death and the random gameplay elements caused by branching routes and the randomness of the deck is intoxicating. The player’s initial hand morphs their strategy for the match ahead, whether going for a quick win or instead building something a little more defensive. Steadily the action points ramp up, to enable the use of stronger cards and allowing for some thrilling action as you try to take down the enemy.

The cards themselves aren’t all warriors trying to hit the hardest, either. There are varied roles to be found, including a Taunt mechanic to force all other units to attack one particular card, health and damage boosters, and direct attacks on the enemy command. Knowing when to play a particular card is vital, particularly given that a player’s strategy can change with a single new pickup.

Combat is integral to the core play of Nowhere Prophet, beyond just the nature of victory in battle. Players will get much-needed loot from fighting, whether resources like food and batteries or the occasional fun item to use, but strategists will need to watch they don’t get too battle-happy. Damage carries over on the player from fight to fight, meaning that a start over is always one poor round away. Thankfully, the permadeath works incredibly well in Nowhere Prophet, in part thanks to how quick it can be to start over and how varied both the routes and the cards handed are.

Beyond this element of tactics, there’s more to be found here. Managing your convoy of followers is very important, keeping an eye on different factors such as the faith of the convoy and the amount of food available. It’s a similar idea to that seen in The Banner Saga, and it helps to add extra gravity to the situation.

Between keeping followers faithful and trying not to die, Nowhere Prophet becomes something of a minefield. There are plenty of options to choose from, such as whether the player decides to avoid a fight to keep health up or gamble and go for glory. There’s also the option to spend resources on gaining more followers and cards, or hoarding batteries to barter as currency when the end result is better known. There’s no right or wrong way to play it, and that means that each play through can offer something very different.

This method of play works perfectly for the storytelling, too. Nowhere Prophet is a strange tale, full of wonderful imagery and beautifully told through text and still images. You get a real sense of its world and all of its brilliant weirdness, and those who enjoyed Out There will find lots to love here.

Assisting with this is the gorgeous art style, resplendent with vivid colors and striking character portraits full of depth. You might not feel for these characters as much as the aforementioned Banner Saga, but nonetheless you do get a sense of the individuals involved, much like fellow card game Cultist Simulator.

It is for everyone? Probably not. Those after a more hands on approach will likely be turned off by its card-based gameplay, while the random nature of both the player's hand and that of their opponent may leave some feeling aggrieved if a run has ended too soon. However, for those more accustomed to these kind of mechanics, there may well be a lot of love.

All in all, then, this is a game that goes far beyond what could otherwise be a rather limited framework. Nowhere Prophet is an addictive, striking card game with an impressive world to explore and tale to tell. A little bit of creativity really goes a long way.

More: The Banner Saga 3 Review - The Power Of A Great Video Game Story

Nowhere Prophet is out now for PC and Mac. Screen Rant was provided with a PC download code for the purposes of this review.