Mass Effect: The Board Game – Priority Hagalaz Review

Written by Alexandra Sonechkina

Despite a massive crossover between the two mediums, bringing video games into the physical realm of board games historically has been a tricky endeavour. Players have learnt to approach such games with a dose of healthy scepticism; however, it is quite impossible not to get swept up in the hype when the words Mass Effect get mentioned.  

What is Mass Effect?

Created by a Canadian game studio BioWare, Mass Effect is a trilogy of sci-fi roleplaying games, where players take on the role of Commander Shepard burdened with quite an impossible task: to save the galaxy. That means not just the Earth but the whole of the Milky Way inhabited by other space faring races, all with their own unique features, cultures and goals. The game is known for revolutionising narrative approach in video games by creating a story that would change with players choices and creating characters that were so believably realised, with their own stories and goals, that they felt like real friends. Even despite the game’s controversial ending it is still held in almost legendary regard.    

Mass Effect: The Board Game

It is safe to say that designers Eric M. Lang and Calvin Wong, along with the team at Modiphius, the game’s publisher, had their work cut out for them in re-imagining this property as a board game. Mass Effect is so – sorry – massive, that any re-implementation of it into something that could feasibly fit into a game box would be no small feat. Playing the game, one thing is clear: the team had a united vision, but it required making some tough and interesting decisions. 

Audience

The first one being about the game’s audience: this one is for the fans. In the video game, it takes hours of gameplay and detailed written codex entries to get players acquainted with the game’s world and other alien races. However, when you get a shiny new board game, you don’t want to be sitting there reading for hours about the game, you want to play it. So, the board game wastes little time on background, assuming that players are either already familiar with the world, or if they are new to it, they are playing alongside a Mass Effect fan, ready to explain what the Genophage and Migrant Fleet are. 

Story

The board game also doesn’t retell the story of the main series, but rather creates a new one. Set during the time of Mass Effect 3, in Priority Hagalaz, Shepard and the crew investigate a crashed ship belonging to one of the series’ antagonists, a terrorist group known as Cerberus, and over the course of three to five cooperative missions attempt to uncover its dark mysteries. This self-contained narrative allows for a nicely sized campaign that could be played in one long game sitting or several shorter ones. Mass Effect’s famous branching story paths as well as paragon and renegade choice system are present here too and bode well with the short campaign timeline. Quick turnaround allows players to replay the game multiple times to experience all its story’s twists and turns without the game outstaying its welcome. Among the abundance of campaign games that take months, if not years to finish, this respectfulness of players time is appreciated. 

Yet because of this efficiency, the story takes somewhat of a backseat. Don’t expect deep lore revelations or the gut-punching emotional twists. Think of this game more as you and your best buddies going on a romp of a mission to shoot some baddies. The snippets of the dialogue and story text work very hard to set the scene, and explain the mission objectives, and give all characters something to say in a very small amount of text. Having to do so much in so little space, it ends up feeling flat. 

Mechanics

With that, the game’s dice drafting combat takes centre stage. Players perform actions by rolling action dice and assigning them to various abilities on their character boards. The game starts with a limited number of actions, easing players into the combat mechanics and letting them learn the best combinations of moves. But as it progresses, players earn experience points to unlock more abilities, more powerful to match the growing forces of enemies.  All missions take place in a tightly designed campaign book, each one a double-sided spread: one page for the map and the other has all objectives, special rules as well as win and lose conditions. The paragon-renegade system plays a big part in the combat. Paragon – good actions – are harder to achieve but reward players with more campaign points (referred to as war readiness, which determine what type of ending players will get at the end of the campaign) as well as earn players extra paragon dice for their hard efforts. And more dice means players can perform more actions, which is always handy. Renegade, ruthless actions are easier to achieve but are also less rewarding. You can choose either path for story reasons only – there will be different outcomes whether you play as a goodie or baddie. But it might be a gameplay necessity too: players could find themselves in a tight spot and choose a renegade ending to avoid losing the scenario. 

Scenarios

Each scenario is a combination of hack something, save refuges, or kill the big scary monster type objectives. The main enemy pool is divided into two broad categories – the aforementioned Cerberus agents and Reapers, the sentient machines – and are easy to dispense with, unless they surround player characters in large numbers. The scenario bosses, however, are a lot more challenging and come with their own arsenal of nasty deadly abilities. Taking them down will take player cooperation and strategic planning.  

There are also two completely optional scenarios: companions’ loyalty missions. Out of a large roster of series companions, the game features four alien members of Shepard’s crew: Tali, Liara, Wrex and Garrus. These are some of the most liked characters in Mass Effect and have rightly been given the spotlight (although I am a little sad that scientist salarian Mordin didn’t make the cut). Completing loyalty missions will allow you to unlock a companion’s special and powerful action that will help in the fights to come. This action, sadly, does not allow smooching of your favourite alien… 

Is Mass Effect the Board Game good?

There is a lot to praise in Mass Effect: The Board Game - Priority Hagalaz. From fluid fast-paced dice drafting combat that is accessible to new players but also develops strategic depth as the game progresses. To a bite-sized campaign with streamlined components and a fun progression system. Yet, for a game designed with Mass Effect fans in mind, it doesn’t lead with what the game is known best for: deep relationship with your companions and tough, impactful, story decisions. So, if that’s what you are looking for, this game might disappoint. However, if you just want to have one last fun hurrah with your best alien pals, this adventure is for you. 

This is the game for the fans, but they should come with tempered expectations: no cardboard box can ever contain everything that is Mass Effect. Yet, this game cleverly picks out some of the key elements of the game to create a fast-paced cooperative campaign featuring the best Milky Way hero crew. 

You should try this game if you liked Stuffed Fables. While thematically these games couldn’t be further apart, both are good example of how a campaign booklet, nice dice and a carefully curated quantity of components can offer a fun and rich in gameplay campaign.

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About Mass Effect: The Board Game

Designer: Eric M. Lang, Calvin Wong Tze Loon

Publisher: Modiphius Entertainment

Time: 45-60 minutes

Players: 1-4

Ages: 14+

Price: £40

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