Arkham Horror, Twilight Imperium and Android studio Fantasy Flight is considering a legacy game
Experimenting with “different narrative possibilities” and “original legacy moments” to make future games “stand out and shine” in the genre.
Fantasy Flight Games, the publisher behind the Arkham Horror Files series, Twilight Imperium, Android and more, may be set to release its first full legacy game in the future.
As part of the publisher’s recent In-Flight Report during Gen Con Online 2021, senior game designer Nate French gave a lengthy look into Fantasy Flight’s latest R&D efforts, concluding with a reveal that the studio had been looking into the possibility of a legacy game.
While French was insistent that a Fantasy Flight legacy game was still only an idea that was being explored for the moment, “not promising a game will come out of it”, the designer said that the team had been asking: “What does an FFG legacy game look like?”
French revealed that Kara Centell-Dunk, senior designer on the recent Descent: Legends of the Dark, who has previously worked on games including Mansions of Madness and Lord of the Rings: Journey in Middle-earth, had spent the summer “exploring” what the answer to that question might be, confirming the “ultimate goal is to take those ideas and focus them into a new game”.
Among the focus of Centell-Dunk’s efforts, French added, was to consider “different narrative possibilities” and “original legacy moments” that would make a new legacy game “stand out and shine” in the genre. Centell-Dunk has also been looking into how manufacturing possibilities could make the game unique from a production standpoint, potentially hinting at an evolution of the impressive multi-level 3D environments featured in Legends of the Dark.
Fantasy Flight previously experimented with legacy-style elements in Android: Netrunner expansion Terminal Directive, which introduced a narrative campaign and modification via stickers to the since-cancelled living card game. However, the studio is yet to launch a full legacy game in the vein of genre frontrunners such as Pandemic Legacy (pictured), Risk Legacy and Betrayal Legacy that offers a complete campaign-driven experience with destructible elements, unlockable content and permanent player progression.
Judging by French’s closing remarks, though, that may soon change.
“Based on the early returns of the session, there’s some really cool things that we can do in this space,” French said. “I think if things continue to go well, there’s a really good chance you might see some of the results of this exploration a little bit further down the road.”