Western Legends is one of my favorite open-world board games, immersing players in an open-world Wild West where they can explore and gain fame (or infamy) however they want. You can become a revered bounty hunter, a feared cattle rustler, a money-making gold prospector, or even a poker star – or a mix of all of these and more.
The freedom and variety of Western Legends make it the closest thing I've played to a Red Dead Redemption board game, with a simple but entertaining morality system that means players on the side of the law can hunt down rivals who decide to rack up a wanted level, and a novel use of poker cards to resolve gunfights and let you kick back and play cards in the saloon if you prefer.
Compared to Rockstar's epic roots-shooter and its sequel, Western Legends is a little more laid-back (it plays in under two hours), but it's still a fast-paced romp through all the Wild West tropes you'd expect (though it avoids many of those best left in the 19th century).
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Since designer Hervé Lemaître’s board game hit tables in 2018, several expansions have followed, adding new faces to its roster of playable historical figures (from Bass Reeves to Annie Oakley) and rules for characters like traveling merchants, the ability to own property, and even a train that the brave can rob.
Now, Lemaître and publisher Kolossal Games are following up on the original Western Legends with a new standalone spin-off that appears to focus more on the narrative elements.
Western Legends Stories applies the open-world gameplay of its predecessor to a campaign told across six episodic scenarios, similar to other campaign-based legacy games like Gloomhaven or Pandemic Legacy.
The campaign centers on a rising town on the American frontier, which players will build from a small trading post into a hub of activity, Deadwood-style, as they play through each chapter. The campaign will apparently follow various inhabitants of the settlement, and player characters will be able to interact with NPCs and influence the development of the town over the course of the story. The game will be played with between two and five players, and each session is expected to last between 90 minutes and three hours, so you can expect to finish the entire campaign in around 10 to 20 hours total.
In addition to the familiar questing, dueling, theft, and mining systems found in Western Legends, Stories will introduce new mechanics for hunting and buildings, and Kolossal says that, like other traditional games, some of the players’ decisions during their adventures will result in “permanent” changes to the town and its surrounding landscape. (A teaser image shows a map that spans everything from snowy mountains to rivers to plains.) We’ll find out exactly how permanent those changes will be.
That’s all we know for now, but I’m personally excited to see a full-fledged Western Legends sequel that looks to play with some ambitious ideas. We should know more ahead of a Kickstarter campaign planned for Q3 this year, with a planned release in 2025.