Surprise! One of favourite game series in recent years drops a new release today, in the form of We Were Here Expeditions: The FriendShip. This smaller, experimental title offers much of the same level of challenge and co-op antics, but in a far more condensed package. Importantly, it’s a great taster for the full game experiences – and it’s free to grab for the first month!
For those looking to jump into the WWH series for their first time, know one important detail up front: you need two players, each on their own console. The whole crux of WWH is two players working together to solve asynchronous puzzles, and it’s what we love about the series. Myself and MPV Graham have played through the last few titles together, so we couldn’t wait to jump in here and see what The FriendShip had to offer.

As I said up top, this acts a taster of sorts for the full fat mainline games, the gist being we work together through just three trials. In a break from the norm though, these are designed around gaining the highest score (and thereby proving your friendship) rather than just getting through the trials. The actual Ship we ride in on get’s various items attached to it the better we do, before we’re graded at the end on how well we worked together. It’s a nice twist to the gameplay, and one that we both enjoyed quite a bit.
Each of the three trials requires a different set of skills and abilities, but they all boil down to one thing – communication. Played with someone you’ve known for a long time (we first met nearly 35 years ago) proves to be a fantastic experience as we both know each others strengths and weaknesses, though there’ll no doubt be hilarious frustration no matter who you pair up with.

The first main task, for example, has each player set before a series of marionette dolls. One side will see a single one that is performing an action, while the other will have several all performing different actions, with the aim of figuring out between you which one matches up on both sides and pressing the correct button. Later on, we’re tasked with logic and movement puzzles, and even after many failures (granted, a fair chunk were on me) we were never having less than a brilliant time.
Each puzzle has a base level to be completed (the second one for example required we work together to get at least 12 points across the board) which will grant us a bronze prize ticket. The real aim though is getting up to Silver and Gold by proving our ability to work together. We ended up with one gold and two silver on our first try, though we were very close to getting all three gold – for another day!

The actual puzzles themselves are up to the series usual high standards, and offer a great variety and challenge, utilising ideas I don’t think we’ve really seen in the main games. My favourite of the trio was porbably the final one as it was a bit broader in terms of activities to do, but they were all enjoyable in their own ways.
As a smaller experience, we got through it in about 2-3 hours over two play sessions, but again, the idea is repeated plays. The solutions are somewhat randomised even if the actual concepts remain the same, and from the few we’ve tried over it never felt like the random nature made things too hard or easy.
Conclusion
We Were Here Expeditions: The FriendShip is an excellent entry point into the We Were Here series, offering up something a little different for returning players and a great taste for those looking to try it out for the first time. The puzzles are – as ever – brilliantly crafted, and require good team work to get the best results, but it’s also just as funny when things go wrong too.
This game was reviewed based on Xbox S|X review code, using an Xbox S|X console. All of the opinions and insights here are subject to that version. Game provided by publisher.