Heat: Pedal to the Metal already had the best racing in board gaming. Now it has gravel. Heat: Rocky Roads, the third expansion from Days of Wonder, landed at retail in late February, and reviews are stacking up to confirm what fans hoped: this is the series at its most confident.
For anyone who has not tried Heat, it is a card-management racing game where you push your car to its limits by spending heat cards to take corners faster, slipstream past rivals, and avoid blowing your engine. Designed by Asger Harding Granerud and Daniel Skjold Pedersen, it has climbed to #42 on BGG with an 8.0 average rating since its 2022 release, picking up a Golden Geek Award along the way. Rocky Roads follows Heavy Rain and Tunnel Vision, and when combined with all three expansions, the series now supports up to nine players at once.
The South Africa track is the star. Meeple Mountain gave the expansion 4.5 out of 5 and called it potentially the best track in the entire series, packed with "delicious, surprisingly slow corners" that reward skilful driving. The Germany track offers a faster, more technical challenge with chicanes along a long straightaway.
The headline mechanic is gravel. Land on a gravel space and you pay heat, but only if you have heat to spend. That sounds simple, and it is, but it creates a layer of risk management around slipstreaming and cornering that slots perfectly into the existing system. New Advanced Upgrade cards round out the box, alongside a 1966 Championship Season mode with event cards and scoring tools for multi-race campaigns. All of this retails for $37.99.
Rocky Roads is squarely for people who already love Heat and want more. Geeks Under Grace called it their favourite Heat expansion track by track. That is high praise for a series that has not put a foot wrong yet.
Sources: Days of Wonder | Meeple Mountain Review | Geeks Under Grace Review | BGG