Aeon’s End is a compelling cooperative deckbuilder in which players try to protect Gravehold from the Nameless: repulsive monsters that enter the world through magical breaks in reality (breaches). Players start with a personal deck of cards with which they attack monsters and activate effects. As the game progresses, players will purchase new cards to improve their draw pile. Aeon’s End is the ultimate in deckbuilders, will the Legacy version unleash the same magic?
Aeon’s End brings plenty of innovation to the genre: players’ cards are basically never shuffled, but discards are ‘flipped’ to form new draw piles. Players can determine the order in which they discard certain cards, and thus influence the order in which they encounter cards again later in the game. Also, the turn order of the players and the monster is determined by a small little wee deck of cards. As a result, the turn order is not fixed and players must be able to change tactics on the fly. Aeon’s End is also a very varied game. The game has many expansions and therefore players can play with different combinations of cards, heroes, monsters and modules. Read more about Aeon’s End in our review of the base game.
Aeon’s End Legacy is a Legacy version of this great deckbuilder. Players experience a story, make choices and make permanent changes. Among other things, they will stick stickers on cards and heroes for unique effects and outcomes. Don’t be wary though, because unlike many Legacy games, Aeon’s End Legacy (AEL) remains playable even after playing through the entire campaign. In fact, the various cards from other Aeon’s End games and expansions can be combined with AEL! Actually, you can consider AEL as an extra addition (in the form of a separate expansion with a nice campaign) or the start of your AEL collection. In AEL you learn (again) step by step the different parts of the basic game, but later in the story you will of course unlock more complex gameplay. This makes AEL the perfect base to explore the world of Aeon’s End. AEL contains several chapters where players unlock new cards, monsters and other components.
A nice element of AEL is the way the market of cards changes. In the base game, you construct a market of cards at the beginning of each game. This, among other things, makes Aeon’s End so varied. In AEL, you start with a fixed set of cards in the market, but at the end of each chapter you must replace two stacks of cards in the market with other cards. In this way, the game evolves based on your choices, but at the same time you unlock new cards that you can add later in regular games of Aeon’s End!
