With the announcement of the release of the final Cursed City expansion going up for order this weekend we can finally start to assess this game. Released to a lot of fanfare in 2021 it now appears GW is giving up on the game. In many ways this is an odd event. Other boxed games have lingered for quite a while. Consider that Blackstone Fortress was released over four years ago but is still for sale (though Cursed City might also remain purchasable for a while too). Unfortunately, it appears Cursed City was never able to shake the traumatic issues surrounding its release.
Background:
As mentioned earlier, Cursed City was released in 2021. The game had a high price point but included a lot of miniatures. There was a lot of buzz surrounding it at launch with GW running several flashy marketing campaigns. Cursed City sold out almost immediately and then GW went mum on when the next batch was due. It has been rumored that a number of actors complicated the launch. Changes to export laws due to the Brexit deal, Covid delays and complications in international shipping etc. For a while it looked like GW had scrapped the project altogether. The game wasn’t great in its initial release either. The core idea was good, but the missions and game play were highly repetitive. I wasn’t terribly put off by this as it seems these days (with both board and video games) you need to think about how a game will look after its expansions.
Then, almost out of the blue, a few weeks ago we got wind of the first expansion was being released. While this would come without any models it did spark some hope that development on the game wasn’t dead. I was hoping the expansions would add new baddies and more interesting foes to the base game. Sadly, this wasn’t the case. For whatever reason, GW seems to think that the best way to maintain player interest is to add post-game content. I would maintain that the game is so dull that anyone who makes it that far would buy almost anything, you need to capture the people who only play a few missions and get bored. This pattern continues with the release of the final expansion coming this weekend. A new post-post-game scenario it is trying to build on the story of the previous expansions, but it really doesn’t work that well. While it does allow them to shoe-horn in a new Radagast model, it provides little incentive for people to start playing the game.
Reflections:
So, what has this whole debacle taught us? Well, for starters, maybe you shouldn’t plan on investing in a GW boxed game until you see how its development goes. I confess to having some buyer’s remorse (though there is a remedy I will mention). One problem with this approach is that GW seems to love restricting the sale of expansions for boxed games for no discernible reason. I initially thought about getting Blackstone instead but couldn’t find a way to get the expansions. Secondly, GW has some really bad ideas for how to make a boxed game. Cursed City seemed to be designed to be a mid-way point between RPG and board game but ended up doing both poorly. There was only a sliver of player choice in events and the repetitive nature of the game play made it a chore to slog through a campaign. In my opinion the best expansions add options to the existing game, not change the goal of the game itself. While the last expansion has yet to come out I think the game will be remembered for being a mile wide and an inch deep.
While I will now approach any similar release by GW with intense skepticism there are some reasons for optimism. Firstly, the models are excellent, and many can be used in AoS games. Secondly there are a few third parties that have released their own supplements and enhancements for the game adding in new villains and heroes. While I still need to find more people to play the game with me in order to test out these expansions I am optimistic they will solve some of the core issues.
In an odd way I think I always knew that it would be the home-brew content that would make this game all it could be. While I was hoping for a more rewarding experience out of the box, I believe there exist rules and ideas that make the game genuinely fun to play. Furthermore, by reaching the end of the updates I have the freedom to explore these options without wondering if a new release will come out and fix all the issues. I think history will remember this game as being…well….cursed. A good idea, twisted by greed, incompetence, and bad luck. Despite this, there is also hope that the players are the ones who can sift through the detritus and build something more positive and engaging.
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