The Best Legacy Board Games

What you are actually signing up for

The format starts with Risk Legacy, Rob Daviau and Chris Dupuis's 2011 design for Hasbro, which introduced the idea that a board game could keep a permanent record of what happened in it. Fifteen years later Daviau's name is on a remarkable share of the category, including Pandemic Legacy, Betrayal Legacy, Ticket to Ride Legacy and the newest one on this page. Risk Legacy itself now sits at rank 637 on BoardGameGeek with an average of 7.35 across 8,934 ratings, which is respectable rather than essential. We recommend it as history, not as your group's first campaign.

The three commitments are the same across every game here. The first is people: the same players, available repeatedly, over weeks or months. A legacy campaign where one of the five regulars drops out after game four is a campaign that quietly ends. The second is time: most of these run 12 to 24 sessions. The third is the box itself, which in a true legacy game does not survive. Pandemic Legacy: Season 1 is designed for 12 to 24 games, and its designer's own FAQ notes that groups typically land around 16 to 18 of them. Once you are done, the game is done.

That last point is where most buyer's regret comes from, so it is worth being blunt about it. You are not buying a game you will own. You are buying a season of evenings that ends with a box you cannot sell and cannot replay. If that trade sounds bad to you, skip to the section below on games that give you the same arc without the destruction, because several of them are excellent.

The best legacy games, by what you want out of one

Pandemic Legacy: Season 1 is still the one to beat, and it is not close. Daviau and Matt Leacock's 2015 design for Z-Man Games holds rank 3 overall on BoardGameGeek and first place among thematic games, with an average of 8.50 across 57,892 ratings. It held the number one spot on the site outright from the first day of 2016 until the end of 2017, when Gloomhaven took it. It plays 2 to 4 in about an hour per session at a complexity of 2.83, and 67 percent of poll respondents call four the best count. What it does better than anything since is the reveal: the rules change under you, and the change is always a consequence of something your table did. If you are buying one legacy game in your life, buy this one.

Clank! Legacy: Acquisitions Incorporated is our pick for groups who want the campaign without the dread. Andy Clautice and Paul Dennen's 2019 design for Dire Wolf wraps the deck-building dungeon crawl of Clank! in a comedic Dungeons and Dragons campaign written with Penny Arcade, and it is rated extraordinarily well for it: rank 28 overall, seventh among thematic games, an average of 8.49 across 11,602 ratings. It plays 2 to 4 in 90 to 120 minutes, and 70 percent of respondents call four the best count. The tone is the selling point. Pandemic Legacy gets grim; this one gets funnier.

Betrayal Legacy is the horror pick. The 2018 Avalon Hill design turns the haunted-house game into a family saga across generations, and the campaign structure suits it better than the standalone game's famously uneven haunts. It sits at rank 635 with an average of 7.64 across 5,442 ratings, plays 3 to 5, and 78 percent of poll respondents call five the best count, so this is one to buy for a full table rather than a trio.

Two more are worth naming for narrower tastes. Aeon's End: Legacy, from 2019, is the best legacy game for two specifically: rank 260, an average of 8.03 across 5,979 ratings, and 71 percent of respondents calling two the best count, which is the strongest two-player consensus on this page. And The King's Dilemma, Hjalmar Hach and Lorenzo Silva's 2019 design for Horrible Guild, is barely a board game at all. It is 3 to 5 players voting on royal decisions while hiding private agendas, it was nominated for the Kennerspiel des Jahres in 2020 alongside The Crew, which won, and 90 percent of respondents call five the best count. At rank 404 with an average of 7.67 it is the most purely narrative thing here.

The easiest way in for a group that has never done this

If your group is legacy-curious rather than legacy-committed, start with Ticket to Ride Legacy: Legends of the West. Daviau, Leacock and Alan R. Moon's 2023 design for Days of Wonder is the highest-rated game on this page, at an average of 8.60 across 7,271 ratings, and it currently holds the number one position in BoardGameGeek's family game rankings. It was nominated for the Kennerspiel des Jahres in 2024, where Daybreak won. It runs 12 games, plays 2 to 5 at a complexity of 2.55, and is rated for ages 10 and up, which is the lowest of any serious legacy campaign we know of.

The reason we recommend it as the entry point is that the base game underneath it is one almost everybody has already played. Nobody at the table is learning a new system and a legacy structure at the same time, so the campaign's changes read clearly against a baseline everyone knows. The catch worth knowing before you buy is that it is a genuine legacy game rather than a gentle one: the map gets written on and the cards get altered, so do not buy it expecting a Ticket to Ride you can keep.

For groups that want a long cooperative campaign without quite the same permanence, Gloomhaven: Jaws of the Lion is our pick. Isaac Childres's 2020 design is rank 12 overall with an average of 8.35 across 42,072 ratings, plays 1 to 4, and teaches the whole system through a scenario book that doubles as the board. At a complexity of 3.64 it is meaningfully lighter than Gloomhaven itself, which sits at rank 4 but a weight of 3.92, or Frosthaven, which is rank 20 and the heaviest thing most people will ever put on a table at 4.41. We recommend Jaws of the Lion first in every case, including for groups who are certain they want the big box eventually.

If you want the arc without destroying a game

A real strand of the category now gives you a campaign that changes permanently and then resets, and some of it is better designed than the destructive originals.

Reiner Knizia's My City is the cleanest example and our recommendation for families. The 2020 Kosmos release was a Spiel des Jahres nominee, losing to Pictures, and it runs 24 short episodes in eight chapters of three games each. Every session takes about 30 minutes, it plays 2 to 4 from age 10, and when the campaign ends you flip the boards over and keep playing the finished game indefinitely. It sits at rank 274 with an average of 7.56 across 13,711 ratings. Its 2023 follow-up, My Island, does the same thing with a different puzzle but has not caught on in the same way, at rank 1,873 across only 1,937 ratings.

Charterstone takes a different route to the same place. Jamey Stegmaier's 2017 worker placement campaign for Stonemaier Games ships with a double-sided board and sells a separate Recharge Pack, around $30 against the base game's $70, containing just the components a campaign consumes, so a second group can run the whole thing fresh. We are lukewarm on the game itself: at rank 648 with an average of 7.17 across 15,444 ratings it is the weakest of the well-known legacy designs, and the first few sessions are thin by design. We mention it because the Recharge Pack model is the right idea and more publishers should copy it.

Two heavier options deserve a mention for experienced groups. Oath, Cole Wehrle's 2021 design for Leder Games, carries its world state forward between sessions through cards and setup rather than stickers and scissors, so nothing is destroyed and the campaign has no end. It is rank 336 at a complexity of 4.13 and genuinely difficult to learn. Arcs, Wehrle's 2024 follow-up, is rank 101 with an average of 7.98 across 18,913 ratings, and its Blighted Reach expansion adds a three-act campaign averaging 8.85 across 2,340 ratings, the highest figure anywhere in this research. Expansion ratings run high because only enthusiasts rate them, so read that as a strong signal rather than a verdict.

If you play alone, Legacy of Yu is the standout. Shem Phillips's 2023 design for Garphill Games is strictly a one-player game, listed as 1 to 1 on BoardGameGeek, and it holds rank 373 with an average of 8.07 across 4,395 ratings. The campaign adapts to how well you are doing, which solves the problem of a solo campaign that becomes unwinnable or trivial halfway through.

The ones we would not start with

SeaFall is the cautionary tale of the format, and it is worth understanding rather than just avoiding. Daviau's 2016 exploration campaign was among the most anticipated releases of its year and now sits at rank 4,510 with an average of 6.15 across 3,752 ratings, by some distance the lowest figure on this page. Ars Technica's review called it a work of flawed genius, which matches our own memory of it. Daviau has since described the project as a bit ambitious, being the largest and most complicated game he had started and only his second legacy design. The lesson stuck across the category: a legacy campaign cannot also be the place where players are learning a difficult new game.

Pandemic Legacy: Season 2 is not a bad game, but it is a bad first one. It rates 8.01 across 18,501 ratings at rank 74, which would be a triumph for anything else, and the drop from Season 1's 8.50 is real. It is harder, bleaker and heavier, at a complexity of 3.25 against Season 1's 2.83, and it assumes a group already fluent in what a legacy game does. Season 0, the 2020 prequel, splits the difference at rank 60 and an average of 8.33. Our advice is the obvious one: play Season 1, then decide. None of the three requires the others.

What is new right now

Two things are happening in this category as we publish, and one date on the calendar should change when you buy.

Nemesis: Legacy is the big one. Awaken Realms launched its crowdfunding campaign on Gamefound on 6 October 2026, two days before this article went up, and it hit its funding goal in under a minute. GamesRadar reported it funded in 54 seconds. When we checked on the morning of the 8th the page showed roughly 4.0 million euros pledged from about 11,558 backers against a 50,000 euro goal, with 19 days still to run, though those figures move constantly and will be well out of date by the time you read this. What makes it interesting beyond the numbers is the credits: BoardGameGeek lists the designers as Jaime Barriga, Rob Daviau and Adam Kwapiński, which puts the person who invented the format alongside the person who designed Nemesis. It is listed for 1 to 5 players at 120 to 180 minutes with a 2027 release year, so this is a thing to watch rather than a thing to play, and crowdfunded delivery dates slip as a matter of routine.

The Queen's Dilemma is the one you can actually buy. Hach and Silva's 2026 sequel to The King's Dilemma, from Horrible Guild, keeps the voting and the hidden agendas and extends the table to 3 to 6 players across 60 to 90 minutes. It currently averages 8.30, but across only 213 ratings, so treat that as an early impression rather than a settled one. The poll data is similarly thin and similarly promising, with 93 percent of a small sample calling six the best count.

The date is SPIEL Essen, which runs from 22 to 25 October 2026 at Messe Essen. It is the largest public board game fair in the world and the single point in the year when the most new titles appear at once. If a purchase here can wait a fortnight, we would wait.

Check the box, not just the title

This category has more near-namesakes than most, and buying the wrong one is a costlier mistake than usual because you cannot resell it once opened. These are the mix-ups we see most:

• Pandemic Legacy Seasons 1, 2 and 0 are three standalone games. None requires the others, and Season 1 is the one to start with regardless of the numbering.
• Pandemic Legacy: Season 1 comes in Red and Blue boxes. Retailer listings consistently describe these as cover variants with identical contents, so buy on price.
• Clank! Legacy: Acquisitions Incorporated and Clank! Legacy 2: Acquisitions Incorporated – Darkest Magic are separate campaigns, and Darkest Magic is much less rated so far, at 1,160 ratings against 11,602. Check which one a listing is selling, because the titles are nearly identical at a glance.
• Clank!, Clank! In! Space! and Clank! Catacombs are not legacy games. Only the boxes with Legacy in the name run a campaign.
• Gloomhaven, Jaws of the Lion and Frosthaven are three separate standalone games, not a base game and expansions. Jaws of the Lion is the one to buy first.
• My City and My Island are different games by the same designer, not a game and its expansion.
• Charterstone's Recharge Pack is an add-on for a second campaign and requires the base game. It is not a way into Charterstone.
• Arcs is a standard game in the box. The three-act legacy campaign is in the separate Blighted Reach expansion, which needs the base game.
• Betrayal Legacy and Betrayal at House on the Hill are unrelated purchases. The legacy version does not need the original.

Our short list

• Best overall: Pandemic Legacy: Season 1, rank 3 on BoardGameGeek and first among thematic games
• Best first legacy game: Ticket to Ride Legacy: Legends of the West, the top-ranked family game on the site and playable from age 10
• Best for a group that does not want grim: Clank! Legacy: Acquisitions Incorporated, rank 28 and genuinely funny
• Best for exactly two: Aeon's End: Legacy, where 71 percent of respondents call two the best count
• Best for a full table of five: Betrayal Legacy at 78 percent, or The King's Dilemma at 90 percent
• Best for families: My City, a Spiel des Jahres nominee that resets into a permanent game when the campaign ends
• Best solo campaign: Legacy of Yu, a one-player-only design at rank 373
• Best long cooperative campaign: Gloomhaven: Jaws of the Lion, rank 12 and far lighter than Gloomhaven or Frosthaven
• Best for experienced groups who hate destroying components: Oath, or Arcs with the Blighted Reach expansion
• Best to skip: SeaFall at rank 4,510, and Pandemic Legacy: Season 2 until you have finished Season 1

The honest summary of this category is that the games are not the hard part. Pandemic Legacy: Season 1 has been near the top of the hobby's rankings for a decade and the designs have only improved since. The hard part is five adults finding the same evening free sixteen times. So pick for your group rather than for the rating: a 12-session campaign your table will actually finish beats a 24-session masterpiece abandoned in March. Start with Ticket to Ride Legacy or Pandemic Legacy: Season 1, agree on a schedule before anyone opens the box, and accept at the outset that the box is a season rather than a shelf item. Several of the games named here have a full page on this site with player counts, teach times and our honest take on who they suit.

Games Mentioned