So this is an interesting topic for me because I tend not to buy new editions when they come out. But sometimes board games really need a new edition for some reason or another. The most common one I can think of, or at least one of them, is that an expansion for the game makes it that much better. Another being that the rules were bad, and sometimes a game is just ugly. So what boardgames would I love to see a new edition of?

Top 3 Board Games That Need a New Edition

Just to set-up how I’m picking the list. I am picking games that I have played. I know that there are some games that are mainly unplayable as the rules are written. If I haven’t played it, I can’t judge that for sure. I know some people think Tainted Grail is the worst thing ever for the grind that was explicitly said to be part of the game (don’t get me started) but I like that game a lot. So I don’t think it needs a second edition of the core game.

3. Lost Ruins of Arnak

This one is pretty easy as to why I think it should have another edition and it’s not because there is a major flaw with the core box of the game. In fact, I enjoyed it pretty well playing what comes in the core box. But the first expansion gives you leaders with powers. That should be in the core box. It took the game from a 7 or so up to a 9 or 10 for me because it meant everyone was doing things a bit more differently.

Now, I don’t think this will happen anytime soon. Lost Ruins of Arnak is a new game that they are still coming out with expansions for. But, in my opinion, the leaders should be in that main box. Even if you want to start with playing vanilla Lost Ruins of Arnak, have it in the box for when you’re ready for the next step.

2. SeaFall

This one falls into having issues in a number of ways. The rules were not good, the game itself was too long, and sometimes, you just got the story out of order. But I like the idea of a pirate legacy game, even though this barely seemed like pirates. So SeaFall is one that could use a complete overhaul, well, kind of.

I do think that the bones are there for a good game. There are elements like getting crew, exploring, fighting, even the dice mechanics once you figured them out in the rules weren’t too bad, but it needs to be tightened up. Maybe reduce how much you can possibly do in a game. Introduce rules more slowly, something like that. They changed rules, but let’s start out with just exploring and then after a couple of games add in fighting.

The two big things are you need to shorten the length of the game. There is no reason, besides to allow you to find more, to extend the games by a point each time. The game is already long at the start, there needed to be a way to get more points at the start from the legacy decisions that you made. And it’d have been a great balancing mechanism.

The other thing is that story. Like I said, you can find it out of order. The game is played over a number of sessions, give me a booklet or a section of the booklet to find the stories. That keeps the story from coming out awkwardly and leave the players with more questions. I get the desire for open world, but that isn’t needed in this case.

1. Legendary: A Marvel Deck Building Game

This is a Marvel game that I will not get. Helps that a friend has or had a ton of it so I got to play it a number of times. But for me this is a game that needs to be rebooted because, in my opinion, the game really doesn’t work that well. You fight a boss, deal with henchmen, and generally feel like you’re not doing much of anything.

Marvel Champions is more of what I wanted, but I think there is room for improvement on Legendary and that both could be in a collection. Mainly, I don’t feel like a super hero when I played Legendary. That’s kind of the idea is you are a super hero(es) beating up bad guys. But it takes forever to get to the main bad guy, make the easier and throughout the game than a last second dash at the end.

And with the deck building, I feel like I’m collecting random heroes. Iron Man, Hulk, Black Widow, and Captain America all in the deck, I’ll probably have some of all of them. So everyone is playing basically the same team-up. I’d prefer a more generic set of cards, each hero can add some to it, but you play as a hero with a base set of that hero’s cards. Let me build up my hero and be a hero in battle. I don’t need to be everything. Let me grab a cool move, some intel, whatever it might be. But it is better than what they have now.

Final Thoughts

I could have come up with more. I actually almost push Smash Up on the list with just, make it into Marvel Snap. They are close, but Marvel Snap is so much better. And that one would really be changing the game, into a new game, versus being a second edition. I guess that Legendary might fall into that area as well.

But board games sometimes need that new edition. And, I would, if I ever had the time, go through SeaFall again and try and turn it into a better game. Try and make it something that doesn’t take four hours to play and a lot of that time not being interesting, in higher player count games. But that is for future me when I have future time, though, I’ll probably always be busy.

Is there a game you want to see a second, better, edition of?

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