Expansion Review – Ark Nova: Marine Worlds

One of my favourite games out there is Ark Nova. For some reason it just scratches a whole bunch of itches (ok, maybe that came out wrong) and I really enjoy playing it.

I’m in 2-3 games of it on Boardgame Arena and I’ll always play it if it’s offered at a game day (unless there’s something new that I’ve been dying to try out).

It was our New Year’s Eve game, for heaven’s sake!

Last year (it still feels weird saying that about 2023), Capstone Games came out with an expansion for Ark Nova.

Ark Nova: Marine Worlds was also designed by Mathias Wigge with artwork by Steffen Bieker, Loïc Billiau and Christof Tisch. It was published in 2023.

It adds a bunch of new ideas and mechanisms to the game, and it makes an already amazing game even more amazing.

I don’t know!

Let’s take a look at it and see.

Since I’ve already reviewed it, I won’t go into how to play Ark Nova.

Instead, let’s talk about what Marine Worlds adds to the game.

It’s not a lot, but the impact of it makes it feel like a lot.

First, and the most minor of the changes, is that they updated a bunch of cards to accommodate the new icons. The new basic Action cards are changed to both allow for the new Aquarium stuff and also to lessen the text and use more icons instead.

That got a little confusing at first, but overall it was a good change.

Since we’re talking about Action cards, though, let’s get to one of the big changes.

There are upgraded Action cards available, and each person will draft two of them. Three of them will be dealt out. You will draft one and pass the others along.

Once you have three upgraded cards, you will choose two of them and replace your basic Actions with those.

The two shown above are what I chose in my first game.

The upgraded Build card lets you pay 2 money to cover a rock or water space on your map (and you’ll also notice that it includes aquariums, which are one of the big additions in the expansion).

The Animals card gives you a free “Hunter” action at 4 strength if you have no Animal cards in hand after playing your animals to your board.

Both very powerful, if situational, things!

Some of them are more useful overall than others. Some of them are more “could be nice, might not be useful” ones.

The Sponsor one I had in my second game was amazing, though!

When you flip it, you get 5 more money when you use it for money.

Even that’s situational, though. You may not use it for money all that often.

So it’s pretty well balanced.

This one, I didn’t use a lot but it is both amazing and not that helpful.

When you Associate using this card, you take your partnership zoo from the supply instead of the board. The flipped version also lets you do that for universities.

That is awesome! You can’t be blocked. And you can have multiples of the same one!

But that also means you can’t block anybody else. If you take Australia, for example, other players can still take Australia.

You also have to adjust your strategy a little bit for the flipped card. Usually, by the time I’ve flipped my Association card, I’ve already filled my universities, so taking a duplicate university doesn’t really matter.

Again, situational.

Marine Worlds also adds a new university option, the science tag and animal tag.

When you take that university, you choose which animal tag you want to use. Not only does the university count as that animal tag, but you then get to search through the deck for a card with that tag.

This can be helpful if you have something where you want a bunch of the same animal tag.

The biggest addition to the game, of course, is the availability of aquariums and aquatic animals.

This is huge because it gives you so many more possibilities.

There are a bunch of new animals that only can reside in aquariums (which I’ll get to in a minute).

Some of these cards also have a much-needed addition to the game: the wave icon (in the middle of the card shown above).

When one of these cards comes into the card row, you immediately discard the bottom card of the row.

It helps cycle through what is otherwise a huge bunch of cards in the deck.

Many of these new cards (but not all of them!) can only be housed in aquariums.

Aquariums are new structures that you can build, even with your basic starting Build card.

These structures require a space next to water, so you can’t just build them anywhere. They also give you a water icon if you need it for some reason.

There are two types of aquarium: a 5-space and a 2-space one, and you can build one of each.

This gives you a lot of opportunities.

As with the Reptile House and the Aviary, the animal card will tell you how many cubes you need to place in an aquarium.

Note that the Penguin can actually go in an aquarium or in a regular enclosure, while the fish has to be in an aquarium.

That picture also brings me to Reef icons.

The Palette Surgeonfish has a Reef icon in the top right.

When you play an animal with a Reef icon, you not only get the effect on that card, but you also trigger all of your other Reef icons.

So you can do it multiple times if you play a bunch.

The final addition to the game is really minor, but it adds a bonus tile at the end of the Reputation track.

If you’re the first to hit 15 Reputation, you can either get the 1 Appeal that you would normally get, or you can take the bonus tile.

After the tile is gone, you still get the 1 Appeal.

Which actually brings one other addition.

Many of the new bonus tiles actually let you take them and spend them later.

The above one lets you pay money to play a Sponsor, but you don’t have to do it right when you take it. You can hold it and use it whenever you want.

New Conservation Projects have some different ways of doing things.

The one above lets you either activate all of your Reef icons again, get one Reputation for each pair of Science icons in your zoo, or let you search the deck for a sea animal (and others would let you search for a different type).

You only get 2 Conservation points for supporting it, but you can get some other really cool stuff.

All of this adds up to a lot of new additions to the game, some smaller and some bigger, but all of them that add some really cool mechanisms to the game.

The aquatic animals and the aquariums are a game changer, because they can add tactical avenues (I can’t really call this a strategic game) to what you want to do.

The new aquarium options are nice, because you can build both a big and a small one. You’re not limited, which is a good thing. You have room for 7 aquatic animal cubes. A lot of options!

And you can do that from the beginning because your basic Build card lets you do them. You don’t need to upgrade your card like you do for the Reptile House and Aviary.

For me, though, the biggest draw to the expansion is the different Action cards that you can get.

Some of them are really powerful! If you have the right use for them.

They’re not overpowered because sometimes you just don’t want to use their ability.

Overall, I’d have to say that Ark Nova: Marine Worlds is a wonderful expansion to this game.

It’s not essential, as the game itself is worth playing and you’re not missing out if you don’t have the expansion.

However, if you have access to the expansion, then I think it is a must. The expansion will make this game so much better.

And it’s already wonderful!

I know that sounds a bit wishy-washy, but that’s only because the base game is so good.

Don’t feel like you have to buy this expansion even if you really can’t afford it.

But if you can get it?

I highly recommend it.