Games Editor, Fionn Reid-Kelly chats about the boardgame Wingspan.
Do you love board games? Do you love birds? If you said yes to both, then I have found the perfect game for you!
Wingspan combines complex points based strategy with an easy to learn system and over 170 beautifully illustrated unique bird cards.
Points are scored in several ways throughout the course of the game. You get points for the number of eggs that you have, the number of points assigned to each of the birds that you have in play, additional end of round and bonus objectives and through storing food on birds and tucking cards underneath birds.
There are currently three expansions for Wingspan. Each of these expansions brings in a selection of new birds from Europe, Asia, and Australia to play with, as well as new unique mechanics both on the birds and within the expansions themselves. The 4th expansion is scheduled to release in the first quarter of 2026, and it’s likely to bring a selection of birds from either Africa or South America.
One of my favourite things that comes with the game is the bird feeder which acts as a dice tower for the game’s food dice. The birdfeeder is structurally sound, plays an important role in separating and holding the food dice during the game, and looks absolutely delightful on my bookshelf.
At its core Wingspan is a resource management and board building game.
Wingspan also has an automata gamemode which allows you to play on your own if all of your friends are busy. Including its Automata gamemode, Wingspan can be played with 1 to 5 players and that number increases to a possible 6 to 7 players with the Asia expansion. Your first few games of Wingspan will probably take at least an hour and a half, but once you find yourself getting more experienced at the game this will sit comfortably around the hour mark meaning that you don’t need to sink an excessive amount of time into playing the game.
Wingspan creates a thematic experience in the game through its tucking game mechanic. Certain birds let you tuck other birds underneath them which counts towards your final score. Where it gets really interesting is that some of the birds that tuck require birds with a wingspan under a certain amount to be revealed from the top of the deck in order for the tuck to occur.
One of the main game actions in Wingspan is playing birds. This action requires building up bird specific resources depending on the bird and the stage of the game. The first requirement is the bird card, on the bird card there will be a food requirement to play the bird, and then depending on how far into the game you are you may have to spend one or two eggs in order to play the bird. Your first bird in a habitat doesn’t require any eggs to play, so in a sense the game finally answers the question of which came first, the chicken or the egg; it was the chicken.