Hellboy: The Board Game – BPRD Archives Expansion

The "mandatory" expansion for the game and one the expansions that come with the KS core box. It brings the case file construction system, which is basically a generator for new case files.

The system is simple: you have 7 decks of cards, each one representing one of the steps to create a new case file. On each step you choose one card from its corresponding deck and voilà. Most of the expansions will come with new cards for the construction system, which adds variability. As of now (2023), the system has 70+ cards counting all expansions, which results in literally thousands of possible case files through combination.

However, it's not perfect. One of the steps is the "Objective" step and its deck only has 4 possible general objectives. The objective is the narrative hook, the story behind the case file, so no matter how wild you can go with the combination of the other decks, your party will mainly be doing 4 things: investigating missing people, stopping a ritual, seeking ancient knowledge or going after ancient artifacts. The game itself will still be fun, but the narrative will be limited to these 4 options. If you're good with writing you can find a way to create more objectives and implement it with the rest of the cards.

A final note: It does NOT come with any of the agents you're seeing in the box, but the new enemies are nice.

That said, IMO it's a neat expansion which expands how you play the game and adds much more variability through a very well thought system to create random new case files.