Monopoly: Longest Game Ever takes the board game’s drudgery to new lows
Who asked for this?
The newest version of Monopoly may be the most ridiculous one yet.
Entitled Monopoly: Longest Game Ever, this latest edition employs new mechanics intentionally designed to extend the board game’s playtime. The most obvious of these being the size of the board, which has been significantly enlarged to include 66 properties: three times the amount featured in the original.
In this version, players can no longer lose through being made bankrupt. Which means that the only way to win and end the game is to own every single property, railroad and utility on the entire board. Buying all this property will take even more time, thanks to the game only including a single die, instead of the usual two. Thereby entirely removing the possibility of rolling doubles as well.
Perhaps the most drastic alteration to this edition is a rule that allows players to literally rip their banknotes in half whenever they need to pay their way, thereby making their money go even further.
Monopoly publisher Hasbro have made no comments regarding the intention behind this particular version, but it’s certainly not the first time it’s released such an attention-grabbing edition of the game.
Last year Hasbro put out Monopoly for Millennials, wherein traditional properties were replaced by Instagram-worthy locations and players sought to collect experience points instead of money. They then raised further eyebrows earlier this year with the release of Ms. Monopoly, a version which sought to give women a financial advantage by allowing them to take more money whenever they passed Go.
However, Monopoly Socialism: Winning is for Capitalists (also released this year) became easily the most controversial version of the game yet, thanks to its rather overt political theming. Instead of players individually earning money and property, they could take from a collectively-owned Community Fund to invest in projects that replaced the board’s usual selection of properties. With such a limited Community Fund to take from, it’s rather hard to actually win the game, especially considering that players are encouraged to actively thwart others to seek their own self-interests. All in all, this certainly wasn’t the most subtle of takes on Monopoly’s polarising place in tabletop history.
If you fancy putting yourself and your friends to the test, then Monopoly: Longest Game Ever is exclusively available on Amazon.com.