Risk Legacy and How Destroying Components Changed Board Gaming Forever

Risk Legacy At A Glance

So first off, here’s the simple facts of what actually happens when you play Risk Legacy. I have completed two full campaigns with this game; that means I have destroyed components, torn up cards and irreversibly changed the game board around thirty times. The first campaign took me and my flatmates eight months to complete because one of us kept skipping game nights. The second took three weeks when I played it over summer with my school mates because we were all unemployed and didn’t have anything else to do.

The first time we opened one of those sealed packets I can still remember. Dan (he always takes these things WAY too seriously) was shaking as he ripped open the envelope. We’d just unlocked it by founding our eighth city, and now we were adding shiny new rules to the board that would never, ever come off. It was then we all realised that this wasn’t just another board game.

Risk Legacy was published in 2011 (BoardGameGeek) and designed by Rob Daviau and Chris Dupuis (Wikipedia), it is the game that introduced legacy gaming mechanics to a mainstream audience. Legacy gaming, as popularised by Risk Legacy, means that the play state of the game is permanently changed between sessions (Wikipedia). Want to name a continent? Great, from now on that continent has the name you choose. Tear up a card in frustration? Gone from your copy of the game forever. Found a city? It’s yours to keep and gives you bonuses for every future game you play.

Risk Legacy isn’t Risk

Put everything you know about Risk aside; throw it away. Legacy removes all that stuff you hated. This isn’t your dad’s three hour risk session hunched over a static world map battling to tiny plateglass table in your grotty uni house. Legacy turns Risk into a campaign system that just happens to focus on area control as its core game mechanic. You play a series of games that make up a campaign (Risk Legacy Rulebook PDF), and every game changes the world for the next ones.

Each game of Risk Legacy still plays much like Risk. Your turn allows you to roll dice to move armies around the board and attack territories you wish to conquer. Standard Risk stuff. But Risk Legacy adds a new twist. After each game concludes there are some post game steps to follow that will evolve the world around you (UltraBoardGames). The winner of each game can rename a continent permanently. Everyone signs the board where they won their first battle. Players found cities that give bonuses in future games. Most importantly, when certain conditions are met you open sealed packets that change how future games are played by introducing stickers and new rules (Risk Legacy Rulebook PDF).

Playing Risk Legacy is basically playing a fifteen game story. You make decisions during play that have consequences that ripple forwards and change every future game. Which is why describing the campaign as 15 games long (UltraBoardGames) is actually pretty misleading. You aren’t playing fifteen individual games, you are playing one continuous game of Risk that just happens to have fifteen points where we pause the campaign to sit down and have a proper game scoring session.

So cleverly, Hasbro points out how the game will change and evolve over multiple plays (Hasbro). Not only that but the ways that Risk Legacy changes are holistic. We’re not playing someone else’s story one chapter at a time like in a video game campaign. Legacy tells the story of you and your friends playing this game. There are no cutscenes full of voiced acted nerdery here. Your story is told through player decisions, not scripted movie lines (Shut Up and Sit Down). When my mate Tom destroyed the “Bunker” card during game 4 of our first campaign because he was doing really badly, that wasn’t a scripted narrative beat that we all knew was coming. That was Tom just being a miserable git, and it changed how every single one of us played the rest of the campaign because nobody could ever use that card’s defensive ability ever again.

The Destruction Mechanism and Why It Works

The one element of Risk Legacy that everyone harps on about is the card destroying mechanic. I will admit, they were the bit I was hung up on before I started playing. It’s mental allowing yourself to destroy components of a game like that. I own Risk Legacy. I bought the game. These are my cards, and I’m literally being told to tear them up? My years of conditioning myself to respect board games was being forcibly challenged here.

I have destroyed around six cards in my two campaigns. Twice as many cards have been destroyed from our friends copy that we borrowed to complete campaign two. The first time I didn’t even tear my card contact, I carefully ripped it so I could frame it and hang it on my wall. But that took the shine off doing it a second time. The second card I destroyed felt awesome.

They work brilliantly because they matter. If you lose a battle in classic Risk and you lose one of your armies, sure it sucks, but you can build it right back up next game. Get beaten down an army in Risk Legacy? Your opponent might destroy that card right in front of you as payback for making them work for it. When Dan destroyed the “Imperial Balkania” faction power during game 11 of campaign two, he knew he was murdering me. We were so close to the end and I had been hoarding that faction for the end game, because I knew if Dan got him first he would unleash hell. So we had a quiet word about sportsmanship after he killed me.

Seriously though, destroying cards is amazing. It adds a totally wild meta game to the component management of Risk Legacy. Every decision you make has to take into account if you want that powerful one shot effect available for future games, or if you want to use it now. Do you destroy your opponents best card to ruin their game even if it doesn’t impact the game you are currently playing?

That paranoia you get when people start snapping up cards you want for yourself is next level. I lost my cool completely when someone was about to destroy “Dan’s Tactical Mind” card in campaign two. I made Dan take the blame for me, but we had WORDS about it afterwards. Literally every destroyed card becomes this huge momento that people will remember for months afterwards. Someone destroyed my favourite card? Yeah, Jake still brings that up.

How Cities and Naming Change Everything

My favourite legacy trait in Risk Legacy has to be the city founding mechanic. Whenever someone wins a game they are allowed to found one city on any territory they currently control. Not only does this city provide bonus troops to that player at the start of every future game, it also marks that territory as yours. It’s great at making you feel like you own that bit of the board.

I have founded six cities over the course of both campaigns. Four of them are sprawled across Australia because I have a weird obsession with dominating Australia in Risk. Who knows why. Two are in Africa, one is in South America and the last is somewhere totally ridiculous in Greenland that I can’t believe we didn’t tear down every game after founding. Having cities your group found has a game changing impact on how you approach Risk Legacy because it’s easy to start thinking of the board not just as territories that need controlling, you have places that are YOURS.

Another neat aspect to Risk Legacy is the ability to rename continents. As the winner at the end of each game you can rename a single continent however you want, and that name is forevermore etched onto the board. Our finished board from campaign one has continents named “Dan’s Disappointment” (He named it after losing three games in a row), “Tom’s Revenge” (No explanation needed), and my personal favourite “The Promised Land” which I stupidly named during a lucky streak where I just couldn’t be beat.

Like cities, naming parts of the board give it personality and a unique feel that your group created together. Names become inside jokes or shorthand that future players will reference. “Dan lost on that continent three games in a row?” Alright cool, I’m attacking Dan’s Disappointment then.

Sealed Packets and the Joy of Discovery

Last but not least, we have the packets. Risk Legacy kicks off with several envelopes scattered across the board. These packets cannot be opened until certain conditions are met. Some require you lose 4 games in a row. Others require you found 8 cities. One even states you can only open it when the same faction wins 3 games in a row.

I have opened five packets in total throughout both of my campaigns. It’s honestly wild how excited you get whenever you finally meet a packet’s condition. It’s such a primal feeling to know that you “should not open this” and then suddenly you’ve finished a game where you meet the conditions needed to unlock it! It’s almost like Christmas.

The actual contents of these packets vary. Some give new powers to factions that change how certain armies play. Others add rules that affect the entire board. Some just add stickers that go directly on the board to create permanent new mechanics. My favourite packet contained an entirely new way to win the game.

What makes these packets so incredible is how they unite everyone around the table. Every single time we open a packet someone has to be the chosen one to do the honour of actually opening it and reading out loud to everyone else. Suddenly we are all connecting over this thing that no other group playing Risk Legacy has experienced. It’s incredible.

Risk Legacy packets also create this driving need to continue playing even when someone is clearly going to win a game. “If we attack here we’ll get destroyed, but oh look we’ll open a packet if we fight over here instead!”

Is Risk Legacy Still Relevant Today?

Risk Legacy is showing its age. If you were to buy Risk Legacy today, a lot of the production feels cheap in comparison to modern board game standards. The components are alright, but the art style is downright dismal and the rules are written like whoever wrote them assumes you already know how Risk works. If you’re coming from the world of contemporary designer games then Risk Legacy is gonna feel a bit basic.

But gameplay wise? Still groundbreaking. Risk Legacy brought legacy play style mechanics into the mainstream gaming world (Shut Up and Sit Down). Everything that has happened in a legacy game since 2011 can pretty much trace its roots back to Risk Legacy. Creating a permanent record of your groups decisions, changing the game world based on player actions, and creating a campaign of games that feels alive and evolving rather than strictly following a script are now commonplace features in board games. But Risk Legacy taught us all how to do it.

Player counts of 3-5 (BoardGameGeek) is also wildly restrictive if you’ve got say five friends but only want to play with four. It also doesn’t help that Risk Legacy sessions can take 90 minutes each, meaning you need a solid group of people that are committed to meeting up regularly to complete a campaign. If you can get that though, Risk Legacy is unlike anything else at that player count.

Risk Legacy really isn’t for casual groups. The whole legacy thing only works if the same people are playing each session. Sure your mates mate is invited to jump in whenever they want, but if they start skipping sessions they’re going to spoil the narrative you’re collectively creating by playing. Everyone at the table has to be committed to playing each week until those victories are tallied up and a campaign champion is crowned.

Why You Should Experience Risk Legacy With Your Group

Risk Legacy is a game I would 100% recommend your group plays if you like the idea of your gaming sessions having narrative weight that single games simply can’t match. Each campaign creates memories and has gameplays that will stand out as significant in a way regular games simply don’t.

It also shows you pure legacy gaming at its fundamentals. Literally every single genre bending legacy game that has come out in the last decade learned something from Risk Legacy. If you play it you’ll have a greater appreciation for how innovative it was during its heyday and absolutely deserved that massive hype train it got when it released.

Speaking as a self professed king of social gaming, the legacy beats Risk Legacy offers create story and conversation that weave through every session you play. Months after beating campaign one we still fight over decisions we made back in game 3 that haunt us to this day. Arguments about past games affect how we play now. Legacy creates connection.

Games can feel like a slog sometimes. Sure you’re winning or losing and building towards that sense of victory, but at the end of the day everyone resets. Risk Legacy doesn’t. Your groups decisions have a permanent impact on the game world, and there is an incredible feeling of achievement when you lean back after a victory and see all you’ve done to make the game world your own.

Best played with friends who you know will be there each week to watch your masterpiece be created.

Verdict

Risk Legacy is a permanent reminder of everything your group accomplished together. I own two copies of Risk Legacy, and have played through two complete campaigns. I have watched this game change from my favourite area control game to something I can never play with anyone but my friends who completed campaign 2 with me.

Legacy cards will never stop feeling badass to destroy. Unpacking those packets is just as rewarding today as it was the first time I did it. Seeing your cities and renamed continents all over the board makes you feel like you own the game. Risk Legacy showed me that games can be about more than just resetting to square one every time you play. Painted the town red my friends, painted the whole flipping town red!

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Billy

Billy’s a university student from Manchester who somehow turned “game night” into his full-time personality. He writes about social games, university life, and how board games make awkward people (like him) instantly more interesting. Friendly, funny, and all about community over competition.