Welcome back to our Arrive on University blog! Today, we’re highlighting one of our favorite board games of all time — Pandemic Legacy: Season 1. Learn what we love about it and why we consider it the only game you’ll need to play for the rest of the summer in today’s blog post.
Pandemic Legacy: Season 1 — The Board Game of the Season
Pandemic Legacy: Season 1 is a thrilling board game where players work together to avert global disaster. Like its predecessor, Pandemic, players take turns curing and eradicating diseases before the world turns to chaos. What makes Pandemic Legacy even better than the original game is a continuing storyline that evolves each time the game is played. But unlike its predecessor, Pandemic Legacy is a board game that can only be played one time all the way through.
Why on Earth would you buy a game that can’t be played through more than once? We asked this question before we played it. Turns out, it’s completely worth it. Pandemic Legacy: Season 1 begins as a simple “defeat the virus” sort of game, but that’s about to change. Pandemic Legacy takes place over the period of a year — the first game takes place in January, the second February...so on until you reach December. Each month can be played twice (so if you lost the first game of January, you get to play it again. Then, despite winning or losing the second time, you move on to the next month). Technically, you’ll play individual games of Pandemic Legacy up to 24 times (that’s two games for each month of the campaign), but you’ll only play through the entire game once. This is because each game you play — the choices you make and things that happen — bring about consequences for the following games.
This was the first board game where we actually were required to rip up cards, place stickers on the board, change rules in the rulebook...actions that you don’t normally see happening in a board game. Each action you’re required to do and each choice you make adds to a rich narrative as you play from month to month in the game. Sure, you could buy a new copy of Pandemic Legacy and play it all over again, but you’ll know what to expect. You won’t be surprised by things that happen in the narrative. Playing this same game through a second time will be far less rewarding as the first time through. Good thing there’s Pandemic Legacy: Season 2 to look forward to once you complete the game.
If you regularly host game night in your apartment or have a group of friends in Dallas, TX who you play games with, consider playing Pandemic Legacy: Season 1. Just be sure that once you and your group of friends commit to playing this game, you plan to play each following game together on a regular basis until it’s done.
