The classic board game Talisman: The Magical Quest Game is making a long-overdue comeback in a few short months. The 5th edition of the fantasy dungeon crawler is manufactured by Avalon Hill, a Hasbro-owned board game developer responsible for hits such as Betrayal at House on the Hill and HeroQuest. The most recent edition of Talisman is no longer in print, and finding a complete set for retail price hasn’t been easy. That changes on July 4, and you can secure your preorder of Talisman’s 5th edition for $60 at Amazon. You can also preorder the first expansion, a cooperative experience dubbed Talisman Alliances: Fate Beckons.
If you’ve never played Talisman before, it’s an adventure board game with light RPG mechanics where up to six players compete to obtain the Crown of Command, slay the Elder Dragon and become the new ruler of the land. Each player chooses from one of 12 characters to play as, including the Thief, Elf, Wizard, and Prophetess. The original game launched back in 1983 and since then has seen multiple revisions, the last being the 4th edition in 2008. The game is typically quite pricey on the reseller market. This new 5th edition printing will make picking up a copy of the game much easier–but considering it’s an Avalon Hill game of a classic that many newer board game enthusiasts haven’t had a chance to try, we wouldn’t be surprised if the first wave of preorders sold out.
Talisman Alliances: Fate Beckons is an exciting expansion, because for the first time in the board game’s 40-year history, Talisman will offer a cooperative mode for two to six players. The $34 expansion set includes new characters, adventure cards, and spells. Teams will try to conquer five trials, which Avalon Hill describes as offering “endless replayability” due to the sheer number of variables in the mix. If you’re a Talisman veteran, you’ll get to experience a new way to play the strategy game, and co-op mode tend to be nice onboarding experiences for brand-new players.
While you wait for your order to arrive, you could check out the officially licensed video game adaptation of Talisman. The digital board game released back in 2014 and has a bunch of add-on content that’s available to purchase separately. You can save some cash on a bunch of Talisman digital content for PC at GameSpot’s sister site Fanatical. Talisman’s digital edition is also available on the Nintendo Switch eShop.
