Android: Netrunner’s Terminal Directive expansion brings legacy mechanics to the LCG

With Pandemic: Legacy tearing up the rulebook (and many of its cards) and rewriting the way people approach tabletop game design – a bold move that has seen it crowned as one of the best games ever made – it’s been little surprise to see similar ‘legacy’ elements creeping into games released since.

Despite this, it’s always a surprise when the factors of the genre Pandemic: Legacy helped birth pop up in already established titles – and there are few titles more established than Android: Netrunner.

The living card game’s upcoming Terminal Directive expansion is a narrative-focused add-on that comes with two sealed decks of cards – one each for the runner and corp players.

Like Pandemic: Legacy (and its sibling titles Risk: Legacy and Seafall, obviously), players progress through the decks until they arrive at the next card telling them to stop, with certain gameplay or narrative milestones unlocking new cards with which to play.

That’s not where the legacy mechanics end, as Terminal Directive also includes a player board (referred to in-game as a personal access device – ‘PAD’) that will be adorned with stickers as the plot continues, tracking permanent changes and the outcome of player decisions.

Terminal Directive’s story regards a murder, with players competing to solve the mystery before their rival. The box includes 163 player cards, plus the PADs, sticker sheet, rulebook and four packs of secret cards and stickers.

You’ll obviously need the core Netrunner set to play, but it sounds like Terminal Directive could be shaping up to be something very interesting indeed.

It’s due out during the first quarter of 2017.