Extra Tracks, Mixed Results: A Review of Heat: Rocky Roads

Welcome to this week’s review! This time I’m taking a look at the latest expansion for arguably the most popular racing game. So, without further ado, let’s jump into it.

Disclosure: A review copy of this game was provided to The Meeple Digest in exchange for an honest, unbiased review. This review is not intended to be an endorsement.

Heat: Rocky Roads is the latest expansion to Heat: Pedal to the Metal. If you’ve never played Heat, it’s a very thematic racecar game that cleverly uses hand management to determine both the player’s car speed, as well as engine temperature. If you speed around a corner too fast, you’ll risk your car spinning out, but if you don’t push your car enough, then you’ll struggle for a podium finish. Rocky Roads is the third expansion to Heat, and it introduces two new race tracks, components to support an extra player, as well as some additional sponsorship and upgrade cards.

Let’s start with biggest addition: the two race tracks. The first track is set in Germany, and it includes a chicane, which is a section of the track that contains two consecutive corners. For context, chicanes were introduced in the first expansion, Heavy Rain. Including the two corners of the chicane, the Germany track has six corners in total, which is more than any of the tracks in the base game. The big challenge with the Germany track is navigating the chicane, as I saw a player spin out going through it, but beyond that, I didn’t find the track to be overly punishing. Personally, I really enjoyed the track and found it to be my favorite of the two new ones.

The other race track is set in South Africa and introduces a new mechanic – gravel. Many of the spaces around the track contain gravel, and if your car stops on a space with gravel, you have to pay one heat from your engine if able. This track will certainly test your heat management skills as there are a couple of difficult corners with a lot of gravel spaces. In total, the track has seven corners, making it even more challenging than the Germany one. As I already alluded to, I didn’t enjoy the South Africa track as much as Germany, as it felt very punishing, and it was difficult to catch up to the leaders if you fell behind early. Of the two new race tracks, I’ll likely elect to play with the Germany one more often than the South Africa one.

Other than two new race tracks, the rest of the content in this expansion is a bit lacking. Both the new upgrade and sponsorship cards lean heavily on the slipstream mechanic, and a number of the new cards have an extra slipstream icon that allows the player to chain multiple slipstream moves in a single turn. Of the new cards, my favorite are the new sponsorship cards. A few of the cards come with an extra slipstream move, as well as a variable zero or four speed. I found the extra slipstream to be more situational, but I really enjoyed having the variable speed cards, which gave me a lot of flexibility in how I managed my hand of cards. Unlike the majority of the sponsorship cards, these also weren’t one-time use only, so it allowed for richer deck building. However, including both the seven new sponsorship cards and the 12 new upgrade cards, having only 19 new cards felt a bit small for an expansion.

There are also four new event cards, which can be used to play a new four race series using the championship season rules from the base game. It’s a bit disappointing that there is only one event for each of the two new race tracks, though I’m sure you could find ways to substitute the events from the other tracks. I personally really enjoy the championship season system in the game, and I would have expected it to be relatively easy to have included a few more events to add some additional variety.

Overall, I’ve enjoyed the content in the Rocky Roads expansion, especially the Germany track and the new sponsorship cards as my personal standouts. However, I don’t view this expansion to be essential, and the $37.99 MSRP feels high for the amount of content added. If you already love Heat and are looking for more content, then I suspect you’ll enjoy this expansion. Otherwise, if you’re a bit more neutral on the game, it’s difficult to recommend this expansion, particularly at full price.

With that, I’ll wrap up this week’s review! If you’ve played Heat, I’d love to hear your thoughts on the game, and what are your favorite race tracks in the game? I’d love to hear your thoughts on any of the games I’ve mentioned or future content suggestions in the comments below. Happy gaming!

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