To all who adventure - greetings!

Legacy is a difficult word to pin down. For me, it elicits feelings of a shared timeline, of impact, of growth and evolution. Clank, on the other hand, is a game that has quickly become part of the board gaming zeitgeist, a fun experience which treads that line of competitive and cooperative with a sense of humour that knows exactly how seriously to take itself (and those playing) at all times. 

Combining these two things shouldn’t work. As fun as Clank undoubtedly is, it certainly isn’t deep. On the other hand, the campaign games that have come to such prevalence in the hobby such as Pandemic Legacy and Risk Legacy are meaty affairs, designed to absorb a playgroup over a period of weeks and months. 

And so, publishers Dire Wolf Digital had quite the task on their hands marrying these two aspects together - the deftness, light touch and good humour of Clank with the heft, weight and impact of an involving campaign. That they succeeded on every level is nothing short of extraordinary. 

Clank Legacy sees players taking the role of members of a spin-off group of the infamous Acquisitions Incorporated, the long established and much loved DnD podcast, YouTube and live show. Initially looking simply to be accepted as an Acq Inc franchise, the world of Clank Legacy, both narratively and structurally unfolds with each game, encouraging players to explore and take risks. 

Components

The first thing to note with Clank Legacy is there is a lot crammed into this large box. In a first for the series, players are each given their own beautifully detailed minis along with one for the antagonist, the evil dragon Malathrax. 

There are a number of sealed envelopes containing stickers, new rules, new tokens, and a host of other game pieces that I am going to avoid discussing here at risk of spoiling the experience. But all these envelopes and containers are marked with the rulebook making obvious when to pick up the correct component at any given time.

The rulebook itself is clear and concise with gameplay examples dotted throughout. It also provides detailed prompts of how Clank Legacy differs from the others in the series allowing experienced players to shortcut some of the repeated rules. A sealed Book of Secrets provides the narrative spine for players’ exploits with passages to read both before and after each mission and frequently during. 

A beautifully embroidered Clank bag is also included with the surefire guarantee that the time you are desperately holding on to your last sliver of life, you are guaranteed to pull a wooden cube of your colour!

The double sided board is beautifully produced with clear iconography and plenty of room for evolution as the players sculpt the map throughout their tenure as fledgling members of Acquisitions Incorporated. 

Gameplay 

The core gameplay loops of Clank Legacy are broadly similar to the rest of the series so far. Experienced players of either Clank or Clank In Space should find themselves at home very quickly. This is once again a game about exploration utilising deck-building mechanics to allow their character to move, fight and buy new cards and tools to assist the party.

Where Clank Legacy differs from its predecessors is that there is more emphasis in assisting one another to get those artifacts back to the team HQ. In previous versions of Clank, depending on your personal playgroup, games could quickly devolve into a race to see who could get home with any artifact first, leaving others to fight their way back within a very limited timeframe. Here, while an element of competitiveness remains (there is a log to fill in after each game to show who finished with the highest score for example), a player dying has consequences for the whole party which caused us to approach things slightly differently in our playthrough.

Another major difference is the evolution of rules throughout the missions. The first mission was, quite frankly, a little stop-start with the flow of the game regularly interrupted with requirements to apply stickers, read out new rules and fetch different game components from one of several component boxes. While this definitely settles out over the course of the campaign, it could initially prove intimidating to players completely fresh to the series. 

But our overriding experience at the end of each mission was one of greedily requiring the next piece of story, hungrily awaiting the next time we could sit together to see what was to come next. Once that initial glut of new rules settles down, what you are left with mission-by-mission is a game that constantly surprises and intrigues, doing so with a twinkle in its eye and tongue firmly in cheek. 

Conclusion

Clank Legacy isn’t cheap. Given the financial investment required, players would reasonably expect something special, something that would engage an entire group over a lengthy campaign. Dire Wolf Digital has achieved this and then some.

This is a game that manages something very special, causing those around the table to laugh at one another’s misfortune, gasp at some new surprise, cheer as the last character stumbles into HQ on the final turn of a card. And it does all of this while infusing those playing with agency, moulding the world as they explore its nooks and crannies and smiling all the way. As a value for money proposition, Clank Legacy might just be the best box money can buy in board gaming right now.