“Attachment leads to jealousy, the shadow of greed.”
Like everyone else in this community, I am anxiously watching the days tick slowly by to the prerelease of Star Wars: Unlimited on March 1st. Traditionally, when a new CCG is announced, there’s a period between the initial tease and the release of the rules, a steady trickle of spoiler reveals, anxiety about allocation of preorders, and then a mostly-dead (a-ha!) period in the last month or so before the official release, and the sweet dopamine release of cracking packs.
For veterans of FFG card games, the steady stream of content for SWU these past few months has already felt like a sea change. I remember the monthly articles about the upcoming 20-card Netrunner data packs, with a brief description of the themes and mechanics, and a couple of pop-up links to card spoilers. There were occasions with Star Wars: Destiny where the player base wondered if we would even get that much prior to a new set release. I’m pretty sure one set fell off a container ship and is somewhere at the bottom of the Pacific ocean. (No, I’m not kidding.)
Then news started to trickle in about the content creator event (and accompanying livestream) that would be taking place at FFG headquarters last weekend. A two-day community celebration of a game yet to be released. A five hour livestream of Sealed and Draft gameplay, spoilers for the remaining 17 cards in Spark of Rebellion (hello there, Force Lightning, I’ll hopefully be seeing you soon), and the announcement of the Twin Suns multiplayer format.
Am I jealous of all of the attendees who, in addition to simply being in attendance were provided with a shockingly generous gift package (a two-player starter, a pin set representing each aspect, a Gamegenic token set and deck box, an event-exclusive playmat, AND A BOOSTER BOX)? Of course I am. But I’m much more excited and encouraged by the energy level around the game, and the effort and care that the design and organized play teams at FFG are putting into the all-important release of the first set. The amount, and quality, of community engagement for SWU has already far exceeded that of any previous FFG release, and the game’s not even out yet.
March 1st can’t get here soon enough.
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