Like I mentioned above, the game is fairly simple. There's a huge stack of cards featuring things from the books and players pull five cards and rank them from best to worst. Since it's a Fourth Wing Edition of the game, there is one Wingleader and the rest of the players are part of the Iron Squad. If the squad is able to guess correctly how the Wingleader ranked a card then the team wins that card. If they don't, then the game wins it. Each card has a letter on the back, and If the players are able to spell out PRIORITIES before the game is able to, everyone wins. This is a cooperative game, so everyone in the squad is in this together.
As someone who has read all of these books, I definitely wouldn't advise playing this game with a group who has not read them. It's meant for three or more players and you'll want to make sure everyone involved has read at least Fourth Wing before you start playing. Since all of the cards are based on characters and scenes from the books, it would be rather difficult for someone to just jump in and start guessing a Wingleader's priorities without knowing who Jack Barlowe is, for example. Where I think this type of game makes the most sense is for a book club, or a book party for when the next installment in the series arrives.
When is the fourth novel in the Empyrean series coming out?
If you're thinking it would be fun to pick up this card game ahead of the next book's release, you likely still have plenty of time. Onyx Storm just recently came out back in February this year and the fourth book isn't coming out any time soon. The Goodreads page had listed a release date of January 2026 for the next title, but Rebecca Yarros took to Instagram to clarify that that is in no way happening. Yarros previously had fairly short gap between Fourth Wing and Iron Flame, but took a bit longer for Onyx Storm. With that in mind, we likely won't see the next book until 2027 or later.