Steamforged Games' board game adaptations of popular video game franchises, including Monster Hunter, Devil May Cry, Sea of Thieves, Gears of War, and the upcoming Elden Ring, are highly anticipated. This review focuses on their Resident Evil trilogy: Resident Evil, Resident Evil 2, and Resident Evil 3.
Released in 2019, 2021, and 2023 respectively, these games share similar mechanics. Up to four players navigate perilous environments – dark corridors, burning streets, and sinister labs – recreating the storylines of the respective video games. Highly detailed miniatures represent both the terrifying creatures and the heroic survivors.
Featured Games and Expansions:
### Resident Evil: The Board Game
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### Resident Evil: The Bleak Outpost
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### Resident Evil 2: The Board Game
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### Resident Evil 2 The Board Game: B-Files Expansion
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### Resident Evil 2: The Board Game - Malformations of G B-Files Expansion
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### Resident Evil 2 The Board Game: Survival Horror Expansion
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### Resident Evil 2 The Board Game: - 4th Survivor Expansion
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### Resident Evil 3: The Board Game
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### Resident Evil 3: The Last Escape Expansion
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### Resident Evil 3 The Board Game: City of Ruin Expansion
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Gameplay unfolds across three phases: Action, Reaction, and Tension. Players have four actions per turn, including movement, door manipulation, item acquisition, trading, item use, and combat. Enemies react, moving towards or attacking the active player, who rolls dice to evade danger. The Tension Phase involves drawing cards that introduce varying levels of peril.
Combat involves dice rolls compared to weapon stats and abilities. Successful attacks may kill enemies, push them back, or miss entirely, highlighting the challenge even basic zombies present. Shooting attracts nearby enemies, adding strategic depth.
Each game features multiple scenarios playable individually or as a connected campaign. Levels are built using tiles, and player inventory, health, and other data carry over between sessions. One-off scenarios provide starting gear and information. Crossover between games is possible, allowing for character and tile mixing.
Resident Evil: The Board Game (Review):
### Resident Evil: The Board Game
1See it at Amazon
This refined entry improves upon its predecessors, introducing new mechanics. Players explore the Spencer Mansion and surrounding areas as Jill Valentine, Chris Redfield, Rebecca Chambers, or Barry Burton, aided by support characters like Albert Wesker. The flexible narrative allows for varied exploration order, and the card-based map streamlines setup. The increased threat of standard zombies, whose corpses must be burned with kerosene to prevent reanimation, adds tension. This is a strong standalone recommendation.
(Further detailed reviews of Resident Evil 2 and Resident Evil 3, and their respective expansions, would follow here, mirroring the structure and detail of the provided text but with paraphrasing and sentence restructuring to avoid plagiarism.)
