Thoughts on… Risk Legacy
This review of Risk Legacy is spoiler free.
This month, Pandemic Legacy will be released upon the world. Like a dropped vial in an airport terminal, its spread is unstoppable. Sure, Pandemic is a hugely popular game, but that isn’t what has the board game community frothing at the mouth. It’s the Legacy part. A concept that was brought into the world of gaming in 2011, by Risk Legacy.
Risk is a game that most people have heard of. Perhaps it brings back memories of long rainy evenings trapped around a table waiting for someone to finally claim victory. Or arguments and family feuds that last far beyond the end of the game. It seems there is always a horror story. So I can’t possibly recommend a game with Risk in the title can I? Well…
Risk Legacy, if nothing else, is the best version of Risk I’ve ever played. Disclaimer up front: I quite enjoy Risk, despite its many flaws. And while some of those flaws remain in Risk Legacy (the world map is still the same after all) so much is better. The key is a switch from world domination to a race to collect victory points. You gain one for each player HQ you capture. The game is no longer as much about holding continents, but instead focussed on rapid lightning assaults into the heart of enemy territory, followed by desperate defences against the inevitable counter attack. The game shrinks from 2-3 hours down to around an hour on average. It is more dynamic, more exciting, more fun!
Yet that is not the most exciting part of this game. That becomes obvious the moment you lift the lid and discover the sealed packets of material stuck to the inside of the box, and the sealed compartments of the box insert. Nearly half of this game is sealed away, to be unlocked only when certain events occur during play. You have in your hands a box of mysteries that will only be revealed as you earn them. This drives you back to the game again and again, and as you do so your game evolves, it changes. No two games are ever the same. Like a bestselling piece of fiction, the story twists and turns and forever drags you onwards.
If there are flaws in this game, it is not that you only get to play it through once. The flaws are to do with the Risk part. The Risk world map is flawed, and it is all too easy to create fortresses of South America and Australia that give players there a huge edge. The game relies on everyone ganging up on the winner of previous sessions; otherwise it is easy for their bonuses, if played cleverly, to snowball. If your group is not comfortable with that kind of gameplay, Risk Legacy is not for you. However, if everyone is happy with that situation, the Risk base game, particularly with its improved format, is the perfect story-generating machine.
And everyone’s story will be unique, because the game you play will permanently change the board. Cards will be torn up, stickers permanently attached to the board, and players will be asked to scrawl across everything in pen! As the sticker across the top of the box that had to be ripped just to access the game says, what’s done can never be undone. Then, after 15 sessions, the game is complete. If you want to experience the game afresh, you have to buy a new game.
Board gamers are a funny lot. We spend our money on large garish boxes of cardboard, then spend even more money on plastic sleeves for our cards. The greatest slight at board game night might be to spill your drink on the board, or even worse to not wash your hands after eating. We so desperately want to keep our games pristine, as though through maintaining these toys we can create a sense of control over our lives. So you can imagine, or indeed remember, the explosion of vitriol when Hasbro announced a disposable, destructible, board game.
But those nay-sayers were foolish. As the games designer, Rob Daviau, said, we pay $15 for a pizza, eat it, and throw the box away. Yet we expect board games to remain the same for eternity. It is a bizarre perspective. Almost any other media is consumed, we read a book, we watch a movie or a tv series, and we move on. Future interactions with those items are never the same; we know how the story goes. (As an aside, this is why there is a special place in hell for people who bandy around spoilers, just saying.) So to complain about a game that will give you 15 evenings worth of entertainment as “not enough” is ridiculous.
You might fear the destructive element of this game. The first time I ripped up a card from the game I felt the electric thrill of the illicit. Clearly I don’t have to go far to get my fixes. But that feeling is undeniable! These permanent changes and decisions you make feel wrong. But that is what makes them so right! This game can change your perspective on what board games are. It makes you confront the fact that they are just cardboard and paper and bits of moulded plastic. It is not the components of the game that are important. It is the people playing it.
It is easy to describe Risk Legacy as “destructive”. I did so above. Yet you cannot create a painting without destroying a canvas. And so it is that Risk Legacy is not a game of destruction, despite its war setting. It is a game about creation. Creating a world that is uniquely yours, forever imprinted with stories and memories. There are thousands of Risk Legacy games out there. Thousands of battle scared, worlds. But none exactly the same as yours. This was Risk Legacy’s unique selling point, until now.
Pandemic Legacy is out this month, and the next Legacy game Seafall, is just around the corner. 4 years of refining the Legacy format means that these will almost certainly be better polished games. I fear that Risk Legacy will be over shadowed, a novelty. And yet, there is something special about Risk’s nature, its war torn landscape, that provides an intensity of emotion that you can’t get in the cooperative game of Pandemic, or the exploration of Seafall. These games will likely be joyous experiences in their own right, but there is something special about out manoeuvring and crushing your opponents and having that enshrined in history. Your victories mean more and your defeats hurt harder. I don’t believe Pandemic Legacy or Seafall will replace that. Risk Legacy most certainly still has its place.
Rating: A Brave New World
The burning card image is courtesy of dc0nklin on Board Game Geek.
Leave a Reply