BetweenMagic: The Gathering’s Duskmourn, the soft launch ofPokemon TCG Pocket, and theDisney Lorcana Shimmering Skies’ Set Championships, the last thing I need right now is a new trading card game to fall in love with - yet here we are.
I’ve had my eye on Altered since the first cards were revealed last year, and every new detail I’ve seen about the game since then has only intrigued me further. Its vibrant and cohesive art style reimagines classic mythology and literary characters like Tinker Bell, Achilles, and Dr. Frankenstein in a modern techno-fantasy setting, with designs that evoke Blizzard, Studio Ghibli, and Bill Willingham’s Fables. It’s one of the best-looking card games out there right now.
It’s also one of the most unique. Altered is a non-combat game in which the goal is not to defeat your opponent, but race them to the finish line. You start the game by placing two regions on either side of the table, one Hero region and one Companion region, then create a pathway between them with a random selection of roads called Tumult cards. Both players start with a hero token and companion token at either end of the board, and the goal is to move them closer together each turn. The first player to bring their hero and companion together wins the game.
It has that perfect balance of easy-to-learn, hard-to-master that a new TCG needs in order to find an audience. There’s a lot of modern touches that I really appreciate, such as its resource system that allows you to add any card from your hand into your energy pool each turn, just like Lorcana’s inkwell. The hero cards function similarly to Commanders from Magic, which serve as a strong foundation to build your deck around, even if you don’t have a lot of experience building decks. Games are fast-paced since turns pass back and forth every time someone plays a card, and the average length of a match is around ten minutes. Though it can get strategically complex, I’ve found it to be one of the most approachable TCGs out there.
Altered has a lot of ideas that help it stand out. Equinox, the French studio behind Altered, calls it the first ‘hygital’ game, because of the way it blends physical and digital play - and ownership. Each card has a QR code that you’re able to scan with the official app, allowing you to add a digital version of that card to your collection. Every card you own is effectively two cards, and you can play, trade, or sell each version of the card separately.
The digital version of Altered is available onBoard Game Arena. You can like your Altered account to play with the cards you can own, or you can play with any of the six starter decks completely for free.
Maybe you only play the digital version of the game and you don’t want the physical cards, so after opening your packs and scanning them, you’re able to sell off the physical cards to recoup some cost. Or maybe you find one of the Unique cards - a rare version of a card with different starts or abilities - so you trade the physical version to one person and the digital version to someone else, netting you two cards in trade for the price of one.
Digital ownership is managed entirely by Equinox, with no Blockchain or NFT shenanigans anywhere in sight, thankfully. While I don’t love seeing QR codes on such beautiful cards, I do appreciate the flexibility Altered offers. Whether you play physical, digital, or both, there’s no barrier to entry. This feels like a modern approach to TCGs that other recent games are missing, and possibly a lesson that upcoming TCGs should learn before it’s too late.
Along with the online marketplace, Print on Demand is another upcoming feature that will allow you to order extra copies of cards you own.
There’s not a lot of room on my shelves (or in my brain) for another TCG right now, but over the last week I’ve found myself playing more Altered than any of my other games. I love the characters and the world, and I’m hooked on its unique, race to the finish line gameplay. Having the ability to play online is a huge plus and it helped me learn all the different deck archetypes quickly. I don’t know if Altered will attract enough fans to compete in such a crowded TCG market today, but I hope the things it’s doing to modernize the genre will have an impact on the future of trading card games.
