Agency Aliens – SETI: Space Agencies Expansion Review

One of the huge hits from 2025, especially for me (hitting #12 on my Top 50 games of All Time list) was SETI.

This game about scouring the solar system for various signs of alien life, all while trying to complete missions and land on planets, as well as interacting with the two (out of five in the game) alien species (or their remnants) that actually do exist and are all over the system, is just such a cool game.

(Wow, that was a long sentence, sorry).

However, the first of the five rounds was just kind of boring, with everybody wanting to make sure to get at least one income card played and maybe get a small start on what they might want to do throughout the rest of the game.

What can an expansion do to help that?

How about quick start cards that give you that boost as well as removing one of the rounds so that the game doesn’t get too long.

(Though it’s still long).

SETI: Space Agencies does more than that, though.

It also gives players a space agency to play that gives them asymmetric powers and increases the variability a little bit.

Add some new project cards to the mix and three new aliens, and you got yourself a stew!

Designed by Tomáš Holek with artwork by Ondřej Hrdina, Jiří Kůs, Jiří Mikovec, Jakub Politzer and Petr Štich, this expansion was published by Czech Games Edition in late 2025.

I’m not going to get into all of the ins and outs of how the game plays, since that was covered in the original review (linked above).

Is the expansion worth getting?

Let’s take a look.

One of the most important thing that Space Agencies adds to the game is the organizations.

You know me, I love my asymmetry in games.

Organizations do just that for SETI, though it’s not a huge thing, which makes it almost the best of both worlds.

Each organization has an ongoing ability as well as a once per round free action they can do.

Not only do they do that, but they also give you different starting resources than the base game.

Everybody’s different!

Cosmos Strategy Group (above) lets you draw an extra card (beyond the ones you are normally dealt) but then you get to tuck two of them for income instead of just the normal one.

Also, when you play cards of certain colours, you can cover the space underneath it and gain that bonus (one credit, one publicity, or one data). As a free action, once per round, you can wipe all of those and gain a card.

That’s all pretty cool.

Deep Sky Survey lets you analyze data for free! And you can also exchange a card in your hand with one in the card row.

Also, as income, you get one of the scanning chips that you can spend when you scan the stars for data, giving you an extra scan in a sector of the colour of a card from the card row that you dismiss.

Each organization kind of nudges you toward a strategy (which I know some people hate).

The Sentinel Probe Network nudges you toward launching and exploring the system, which sadly I didn’t do much of when I had them!

It does have a nice free action of gaining the free action bonus of a card (top left) that you have played.

That’s always nice.

Another really great aspect of the expansion is the quick start cards.

These cards make it so that you can essentially skip the first round (which is why it’s actually removed from the game).

They can be anything from scanning certain sectors (not getting any bonuses for doing so, though the cards give you the data and the points anyway), to actually starting out with an alien trace.

Or they can even have you start with a probe orbiting one of the planets, which in our last game three of the four of us had, which meant there was already a head start on being able to land on planets.

You would think this would shorten the game, but in my experience it hasn’t really.

Instead of spending the first round slowly ramping up stuff and maybe (hopefully!) being able to play an income card, you start with all of that already.

But you have so much that you can do that the time spent is on the back end instead of the front end of the game.

Of course, that part is much more fun so even though the game length doesn’t really change much, it’s much more interesting.

The other new additions to the game are three new aliens, and this is kind of the weakest part of the expansion.

Not that they’re not interesting, but all three of them are pretty complicated.

While I could see adding the other new stuff with new players, you might want to think twice about adding any of the new aliens with new players (though they may have no problem if they are experienced gamers).

My favourite of the three has to be the Amoeba (above).

It has resource tokens in two loops that go in opposite directions.

When you place an alien trace in a space that has the three symbols (like the open one on the right between the purple and orange tokens above), you gain all of the resources that are located in that colour.

You then move all of them one space around the track, most likely having one or more of them move on to a different colour.

Some of their cards also let you get one of the resources in a colour when you play them.

There’s just something about that one which makes me happy.

Another one is the Glyphids, where you are trying to translate their language and it adds a bit of a set collection element.

You’re collecting the tokens and for each set of tokens of different colours, you’ll get points depending on how many tokens are in the set.

But you can also spend the tokens for the resources that match where that coloured token is on the alien board (so in the picture above, the orange one would get you a card).

Both of these (and I believe the third one too, though I haven’t played it) are very fiddly with lots of components, so if you’re not in the mood for that, maybe try the base game aliens.

All of this comes together into what I consider an almost essential expansion.

I love the base game (it hit #12 before the expansion!), but that first round is just such a slog.

The organizations and quick start cards get you up and running to where the game is all interesting stuff.

That being said, this won’t solve the problem if you didn’t really like the game to begin with, unless your only criticism was that really slow first round.

If that was a big enough problem for you to hate the game, then maybe Space Agencies would change your mind?

But if you didn’t find the card play or exploring or the tons of different paths you have enough to keep your attention, Space Agencies won’t suddenly make it better.

All of the additions really improve the game, with neat aliens (though a bit complex, so keep that in mind for your players) and a wonderful beginning to the game.

Why would you not play it with the expansion if it’s available?

(This review was written after 3 plays with the expansion)