Disclosure: Meeple Mountain received a free copy of this product in exchange for an honest, unbiased review. This review is not intended to be an endorsement.
There was a point after my first lap around the South Africa track, one of the two new tracks in Heat: Rocky Roads, when I realized that it might be my favorite track in all of Heat. Nothing else in the extended Heataverse feels quite as rewarding of great play. South Africa isn’t as punishing of poor play or bad luck as España, nor is it a source of the same adrenalized fun that comes with ripping down the straightaways in Italia or Nederlands, but a skilled player in South Africa can do some incredible things. And for the record, I came to this realization while I was getting absolutely walloped.
What is it that makes the track so good? It isn’t the gimmick. The only special rule is that any player who finishes their move on a gravel space has to pay a heat if they have one. If you’re on gravel and you don’t have any heat, it don’t hurt you none. This is a perfectly fine addition to the game, one that will occasionally make you second-guess taking advantage of an opportunity to slipstream, but it doesn’t add so much to the game that it would change the feel of an entire track.
It’s the corners. South Africa is jam-packed with delicious, surprisingly slow corners, and slow corners that are jeeeeeest far enough from one another to make you want to gun from one to the next. But you can’t. They’re too close together. You’ll get in trouble. It’s easy enough to accidentally cross two that you have to pay attention. Successfully navigating the gamut feels like making it from one end of the monkey bars to the other, a display of coordination, finesse, and just a little muscle.
Beyond South Africa, Rocky Roads adds a ninth car, a Deutschland track with a screamer of a straightaway, and a new set of upgrades that give you the option to slipstream additional times. This is an unbelievably powerful upgrade, provided it pops off, especially if you chain it with the pre-existing upgrade that allows you to slipstream further. It is possible, with just the right board layout, to zip ahead an additional 8-12 spaces without worrying about corners. It’s balanced by the fact that you have to be behind other players for the upgrade to mean anything, but it’s a thrill when it works. The threat of it is always there for the other players.
I go back and forth on how to rate these expansions. A 5/5 expansion, to me, is one that either fundamentally improves the game or makes me see it in a new, better light. The Heat tracks aren’t that. They never revolutionize Heat. They’re more of the same. They don’t “fix” anything that’s broken, but that’s because nothing is broken. So long as the tracks keep adding something new to the experience, and so long as the upgrades keep introducing interesting new ideas that fit within the scope of the whole, I’ll keep rating these things exactly what I would rate the base game. Just know you don’t need them.
But boy, you might want ‘em.
Heat: Rocky Roads details
- Designer: Asger Aleksandrov Granerud, Daniel Skjold Pedersen
- Artists: Vincent Dutrait
- Publishers: Days of Wonder, Gém Klub Kft., Rebel Sp. z o.o.
- Release Date: 2026
- Player count : 1 - 7
- Age range : 10+
- Time range : 60 - 120 minutes
- Mechanism(s):
- BGG Geek Rating: 8.05814 - converted to Meeple Mountain scale: 4.0.
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