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.
Gen Con 2026 must have been the convention of “alien on the loose” games, because I seemed to be playing them constantly. In fact, in one night we went from This Game Is Killer: Alien on Board to This Game Is Killer: Frozen Horror to Not Alone: Remastered Edition. While the latter is a slightly different flavor, the asymmetry of the Not Alone: Remastered Edition puts one player in the driver’s seat of the alien threat while the others try to outlive, outlast, and outsmart them.
Not Alone: Remastered Edition: Hide and Seek
Having never played the original Not Alone, my thoughts are solely based on my experiences with this improved version. In Not Alone: Remastered Edition, the players have evacuated their ship, landing on a mysterious planet called Artemia where it quickly becomes apparent that they are…not alone. Insert DiCaprio meme here. They become the Hunted in a race for survival against one of the other players who assumes the role of the Creature, whose goal is to stymie their efforts.
The main tracker board is set up in the center of the playing area, with the Hunted’s Rescue counter on one end and the Creature’s Assimilation counter on the other end. Whichever of these markers reaches the Victory space in the middle of the board is the winner.
Each Hunted player receives a player board with a unique ability, along with a set of Place cards valued 1-5. Three Place cards for each of the remaining values, 6-10, form a reserve which players can take from as the game progresses. The Creature player gets their own player board, set of tokens, and a deck of Hunt cards. Setup is complete after the Survival deck is shuffled and placed within reach, and one copy of the 10 Place cards is arranged in front of the Creature player to form an area representing the planet’s surface.
At its core, Not Alone is very much akin to a game of hide and seek; each player chooses a Place where they want to go each round, while the Creature guesses their location. Starting out, each player has only five Places that they could choose, with previously spent cards limiting their options.
A round consists of four Phases. In the Exploration Phase, Hunted players secretly choose their Place card. It is also during this time that they can Resist by handing in one or two of their personal Will tokens, or they can Give up to replenish their Will at the cost of the Creature’s Assimilation counter moving one space closer to victory.
The Creature player then places the Creature token on one of the Place cards during the Hunt Phase. Additionally, they could place the Artemia token and Target token if applicable due to a played Hunt card. One Hunt card can be played by the Creature each turn during a Phase indicated on the card. It is in the best interest of the Creature to use these as much as possible to affect the Hunted.
In the Resolution Phase, the results of the round are revealed. Any player who chose a Place that wasn’t impacted by a Creature token gets to take the action of that location or return a Place card from their discard pile. Any Hunted who chose a Place where the Creature placed a token has to resolve the effect of the token. Oftentimes this means that they forfeit the ability to take their chosen Place’s action and instead get penalized. If a player is caught by the Creature token, the Assimilation marker moves forward for the Creature.
The Maintenance Phase happens at the end of the round where the playing area gets reset and the Hunted’s Rescue counter ticks forward one space. The game ends when either the Rescue token or the Assimilation token reach the space with the star.
Not Alone: Remastered Edition: Another Bug Hunt
Not Alone is filled with tension as the Hunted players attempt to think one step ahead of the Creature player. The game plays with up to seven total players, flooding the Places with Hunted player markers. You would think that a higher player count would make this a walk in the proverbial park for the Creature player, but it remains a challenge no matter how you slice it.
In the first round, there are really only four logical Places for the Hunted Players to choose, because the ability for Place 2, The Jungle, is used primarily to return two discarded cards back to your hand. Of the remaining Places, a couple of them are quite desirable; the River allows the Hunted to play two cards the following round, all but guaranteeing a safe choice, and the Rover is the card that allows Hunted players to accumulate Places 6-10.
Once the number of accessible Place cards for each player increases, the job of the Creature gets more difficult. Even with more targets on the board, the Creature player is forced to keep pace with the Hunted, whose Rescue token automatically ticks up every turn.
In one six-player game, the Creature player became frustrated as the number of available Places spiralled out of their control. There’s a certain point on the board where the Artemia token is available for placement every turn, and even that sometimes feels like it’s not enough oomph for the Creature to gain any meaningful headway. Places like the Beach and the Wreck are important for the Hunted because they serve as the only other way for the Rescue token to move forward, so the Creature feels an obligation to block those Places. Smart Hunted players know this, however, and just keep playing the long game, hiding elsewhere.
I do think the game would benefit from having some kind of tracker for each player, showing which extra Place cards they’ve acquired. This would help the Creature player manage the information load more easily; if it’s something that I can track with a pen and paper, I shouldn’t necessarily have to remember it.
Despite the challenge that the Creature faces, Not Alone: Remastered Edition feels balanced. Every game that I’ve played has been fairly close, both with brand new players and a more experienced player piloting the Creature. The “will they, won’t they” feeling as the Creature places their tokens is palpable, and every round at least one side of the table becomes flush with the accomplishment of outsmarting the other.
I should also mention that there is a second mode of play in the box called Frozen Lands. This swaps out the default Places for brand new ones to shake up the gameplay and adds specific Hunt and Survival cards into the mix. It introduces the Contamination mechanic, a secret token that Hunter players can accumulate. If the Rescue token would ever move to the Victory space, the Hunted players can choose to discard a Contamination token instead of moving the Rescue token. This choice is important because if any player has a Contamination token with a biohazard icon on the hidden side when the Rescue token reaches the end, the Hunted still lose the game.
Not Alone: Remastered Edition creates meaningful suspense through player choice and also makes every choice matter. The Hunted care if their teammates get caught, and it’s just as much a surprise for them as it is for the Creature. It’s a fun take on asymmetry that could still use a bit of polish in the rulebook and gameplay, but overall I know I’m not alone in being a fan of the game.
