The Stellaris boardgame will change permanently as you play it

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It's the first videogame adaptation to take on the legacy format.

AN image of the Stellaris board game Stellaris Infinite Legacy
(Image credit: Academy Games, Paradox Interactive)

Sprawling space strategy success Stellaris is the latest Paradox Interactive game to get a boardgame adaptation, several years into Paradox's effort to boardgameify everything it publishes. Academy Games and Paradox are partnering up to make Stellaris Infinite Legacy, a boardgame taking the 4X space strategy experience to the tabletop via a Kickstarter campaign that's already at a smooth $860,000 with 24 days to go. 

The big change here over past Paradox game adaptations is that this is the first of them to be a "legacy" game. If you're not familiar, legacy boardgames change over time, making permanent alterations to cards, the board, and more each time they're played. In the case of Stellaris Infinite Legacy your alien empire will change over time, gaining new technologies, adaptations, and mechanics from game to game. You can also abandon it, turning it into one of the PC games' Fallen Empires to show up in future games.

AN image of the Stellaris board game Stellaris Infinite Legacy

(Image credit: Academy Games, Paradox Interactive)

It's a two hour game designed for 1-4 players using simultaneous actions, and by the way it's described will be pretty accessible to even inexperienced boardgame players. The design also claims to be friendly to variable player counts and players missing a game or joining partway through a campaign, a notorious problem for legacy games. Academy Games is a company with a rather good track record across lots of game genres, known very well for their historical games like 1775: Rebellion, so I'd be truly surprised if this one is bad.

Licensed videogame to boardgame adaptations are a pretty hot topic, aren't they? In the last six months we've seen Monster Hunter World, Skyrim, Stardew Valley, The Witcher, Slay the Spire, Darkest Dungeon, and Frostpunk games on the way.

You can find Stellaris Infinte Legacy on Kickstarter.

Jonathan Bolding
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Jon Bolding is a games writer and critic with an extensive background in strategy games. When he's not on his PC, he can be found playing every tabletop game under the sun.