Eight years ago I wrote about the exciting prospect of legacy games. Pandemic Legacy was the newest one on the scene and it revolutionized storytelling in games after Risk Legacy paved the way in creating a whole genre of games that changed permanently and evolved as you played. Eight years later, with seven full legacy games completed, and roughly as many failed part way through, I want to talk this week about the lasting legacy of these games with some perspective, and where I stand on them these days.

Part of these thoughts have to do with recently finishing Ticket to Ride Legacy: Legends of the West, the most recent output from the most prolific legacy designer Rob Daviau. I will touch on TTR Legacy briefly throughout this blog but will try not to spoil anything as the sense of discovery is half of what legacy games are about. But It’s an important context so I will bring in a few thoughts about it.

 

Groups and Games

First, the successes and the failures. I think in games that I’ve tried I am running at about a 60% completion rate. A lot of this has to do with the group. I have one Legacy group with whom I have completed 6 games. Every summer we would start a campaign around April or May and endeavor to finish it by September before our October schedule got much more busy. We have a Sunday AM time carved out and once we commit to a game we see it through. This works, and is a delightful way to spend Sunday AMs during the summer but speaks to the level of scheduling involved. With this group I have finished all three Pandemic Legacy games, Charterstone, Betrayal Legacy and Ticket to Ride Legacy. The key to completing a legacy game is this sort of consistency. Try to plan out as many sessions in advance as you can or stick to a regular schedule. But the success of this group ALSO has to do with the games. The Pandemic Legacy series continues to be the best in the genre. We completed these games because they remained compelling throughout our sessions which made it worth the time commitment.

With a different group I have failed to finish, well, every campaign we have started. Some of this is the group. I will own that having a break-up in the middle of the Risk Legacy campaign really didn’t help get that one over the finish line. Some of this is the game, as Seafall, Rob Daviau’s much anticipated follow up to his previous legacy games, didn’t actually succeed as a game one would want to play. Werewolf Legacy was a TERRIBLE idea as that game requires an even bigger group to get together on a regular basis. And the new Risk: Shadow Forces game I simply did not want to play after a few sessions.  But oftentimes the scheduling just didn’t work out and consistently getting 4 adults together on any sort of regular basis just proved to be too difficult.

 

Industry Trends

Legacy games proved to be too difficult for every other publisher to jump on the bandwagon. They are certainly more out there since Pandemic Legacy’s success, but they are not as prolific as I would have thought they would be eight years ago. Instead one legacy that these games left is a trend towards campaign games, or having campaign modes in otherwise stand-alone games. So many games these days seem to promise some sort of small or large arc where players unlock new content. And so, many games on Kickstarter these days promise some sort of campaign. Maybe this was chasing the Gloomhaven buzz just as much as the Legacy hype but campaign style games are truly everywhere. This is an exhausting side effect of these early games’ success. Outside of the one group I play with each Summer, I don’t have a lot of interest in trying to schedule multiple sessions to get the most out of any game. Campaigns in other games are mostly just a side effect of the infinite game phenomenon I talked about previously. However I will give a nod to some light touch unlock elements in games like Meadow and Dorf Romantik. These don’t feel like campaigns as much as little drips of endorphins when you hit certain accomplishments or milestones. It is neat to have a game that “evolves” but I feel like the board game industry has taken mixed lessons from eight years ago and the fatigue towards this trend is starting to set in.

With all that being said, I do still like the genre in small doses. Ticket to Ride Legacy was a lot of fun this summer. It has a lot of the elements that are a recipe for success in Legacy games. For one thing, it is built on the solid foundation of Ticket to Ride, which is a great game to start with. For another, it is all about discovery. Each new map section has a new little mini game that sticks around for the next 2-3 games. They are very clever in that you are never keeping too many rules in your head at one time, but there’s also always something new to keep things fresh. Where the game was less successful than its predecessor is mostly the story. There was an overarching plot for Ticket to Ride Legacy but I cannot recount any major beats of it for you. The Pandemic Legacy games, especially the first one, are really much better focused on the narrative, and I did miss that with this campaign. The novelty of discovery is still the most fun and consistent draw of Legacy titles to this day. I will happily sign up for one of these each summer, but ultimately the novelty of your first Legacy game is usually going to outshine future iterations. It’s kind of a first love sort of thing, I suppose.

There are exciting things happening in terms of stories in games outside of Legacy and campaign games, however. In some ways I seek out games that create stories more than those that tell you a story. Cole Wherle’s Oath created a game where the end of one game always impacted the setup,  goal, landscape and even cards of the next game. It has an expansion coming next year that will make changes even more intentional, but it serves more as a sandbox where players create their own history versus going through a prescribed story from the designer. His other recent release Arcs boils this down even further with a three game campaign with branching paths to tell mini Space Opera stories. Here the cast and goals are created by the game but the stories are created by the players. Expect more writing about Arcs in the future as I work to explore that game more in depth. And finally,

Earthborne Rangers is an enormous card game that presents itself as “open world.” This again steps away from the railroaded story of legacy games, and aims to create something that players explore more organically and discover the narrative for themselves. Here it is not necessarily player created stories but instead an impressive keyword system that makes narrative emerge through play. In an incredible nod against the inherent wastefulness of legacy games, Earthborne Rangers promises to be a game made in such a way that the whole endeavor is suited for the compost bin, and won’t outlast its owners as trash down the road.

So while Legacy games haven’t gone in the direction I thought they would eight years ago their impact on the hobby is undeniable.  For other writing on these types of games check out my review of My City, which has a sequel out now called My Island. Reiner Knizia focuses mostly on the evolving mechanisms style of Legacy Game so certainly don’t go to either of those games looking for a popcorn worthy thriller.