Ticket to Ride Legacy: Legends of the West Unboxing

If you’ve played Ticket to Ride in the past, a lot of what is in the Ticket to Ride Legacy box will be familiar to you. However, even I was shocked by how big this box was, which makes me really excited for what is to come across the 12 games my wife and I have planned. This is a much more expensive Ticket to Ride experience than just buying a stand-alone game, but early reviews seem promising. At the very least, you are getting value in what comes in the box, at least I assume seeing as so much of it is boxed away and hidden! Let’s take a look.

This is still Ticket to Ride, so don’t be shocked by there being a ton of standard Ticket to Ride things inside the box! Of course you have 5 player colours – red, black, blue, green, yellow – plus a little baggy of replacement trains in case you lose one. This has been standard in all Ticket to Ride big box experiences since they were first launched, which is a great touch. You also have ticket cards and train cards much like you would in a standard game. From this view, Ticket to Ride Legacy should be somewhat familiar to long-time fans, which I think is one of the goals the design team had when creating this experience.

Both the ticket cards and the train cards have unique symbols on them that you won’t find in regular Ticket to Ride, and those symbols will factor into the game further into your adventure. I’m not permitted to talk about those now, and wouldn’t anyway as it might be a spoiler!

Also included in the box are Event cards, and while I assume the design team meant for these to be a surprise as they are revealed (at least for game one), I actually strongly suggest looking at the event cards prior to playing your first game. If you don’t want spoilers, skips over the following italicized section.

Here’s the thing about the event cards. They are meant to be random. Into the train deck, players will shuffle a number of newspaper cards as indicated by the setup instructions. Anytime a newspaper card is pulled by a player from the deck, or revealed in the face-up display, it is resolved by drawing an Event Card. Event Cards are meant to be very random, and it might feel INCREDIBLY unfair in some situations, coming down to sheer dumb luck. 

For example, in the event deck is a card that gives you $5.00 if you happen to have a route going into that specific city. There is only one of these cards in game #1, and the randomness of MAY BE building a route into that city prior to the card being pulled could feel incredibly unfair for a player who might not have done that. There is NO indication that you should build into this city, and frankly, there isn’t anything special about the city at all. It’s just random dumb luck if you don’t know the card exists before playing.

The box also includes player boxes for storing components from game-to-game. The player box is split into two sections. One section has a flap that opens to access what is inside, while the other side of the box is a simple slit. After each game, you will slide a banknote into this slot with all the details of your previous game, which will be revealed again when the entire campaign is over for final scoring.

The Ticket to Ride Legacy game board is put together like a puzzle, and more sections of the board will unlock over time. These new sections are hidden behind a thin paper shield, so make sure not to have an over eager player at the table get into the box – they might accidentally reveal future tiles and ruin some surprises!

Finally, there are boxes that will unlock over time. I can’t discuss what you will find in these boxes, but rest assured they are full of great surprises.

The game comes with a wonderful insert, which is almost a necessity for legacy games. Getting this to the table and packed backup takes very little time, and everything has its place. I cannot wait to finish up the campaign and share my final thoughts!

Trailer