FFG: Star Wars: X-Wing 2.0 Announcement & Interview
We had a chance to sit down with two of the designers of Star Wars: X-Wing 2.0 and chat about all the exciting things heading to a tabletop near you!
Fantasy Flight Games just announced that X-Wing 2.0 is coming soon! FFG invited me out to their headquarters to take a look at the upcoming Star Wars: X-Wing 2.0. I spoke with Frank Brooks and Max Brooke about a TON of new stuff and quality of life improvements coming to the game.
It’s The Little Things That Count
After talking with Frank and Max it was clear that they loved X-Wing and they knew the game inside and out – they should! So it was easy to see that they had a very deep understanding of the first iteration and perfectly logical reasons for the changes they made with X-Wing 2.0. Everything they did that I got to see improved upon the previous game. They did some cutting, they did some adding. They looked at every aspect of the game from card layouts, to tokens, to templates, and even some of the ingrained mechanics of the game and reviewed them. The final product really shows the care and attention to detail that went into the game.
They talk about each one of these changes in lots of detail in the video but here are a few of the highlights:
Quality of Life Improvements:
- Blue is the new Green – a color template swap was made for better visuals for color-blind players.
- Same Templates, new features – The maneuver templates have a line down the middle so it’s easier to place ships when they bump…and for other reasons.
- Dial Improvements – the Dials have changed in design so they are easier to read; the front is the back and the back is a new design.
- Bases Improved – All bases now have a rear arc marked on the base to make it easier to see if you’re in someone’s rear arc (or their rear firing arc). Also, bases now ALL have the bulls-eye arc marked. It doesn’t change anything intrinsically, but some cards can trigger off it (like the new Crackshot).
- Token Improvements – New token design and some of them are front/back now. The “End of Round” tokens are all round – so at the end of the round you pull the round ones!
- New Card Layouts – They are easier to read and LCG sized (even upgrade cards). Plus they line up better.
Mechanic Changes:
- New Linked Actions – These actions can trigger another action. For example you could Focus and then Boost. It’s pilot/ship dependent. (This basically replaces Push the Limit – which is GOOD!)
- The Force is in the game now -It’s another ‘resource’ some pilots have access to and can be used for different pilot abilities as well as a “mini-focus” to change focus results to hits/evades.
- New Charge Tokens – useful to keep track of card effects
- Barrel Roll now only has 3 positions per side (6 total) – makes Barrel Roll more inline with Boost as you only have 6 total positions.
- If you declare and action and you can’t do it (ie Barrel Roll would land you on a rock), you just lose the action now – It’s harsher but rewards you for being a better pilot.
- Target Lock is now just Lock – and you can Lock on to objects as well as ships (friendly and enemy).
- Certain ships have different attack values for different arcs now.
- Turrets now all function similar to the Shadow Caster with the mobile firing arc – you can now ‘Arc Dodge’ Turrets and they do take some planning to use correctly!
- Evade Tokens now allow you to change a die to an evade result – you cannot get more evade results than your agility value via evade tokens.
- Turrets also get ranged bonuses and penalties, Ordnance does not.
- Ordnance weapons now typically have charges (ie, they are multi-use!)
- Upgrade slots now have more defined rolls – Crew, Astromech, etc have all been tweaked.
There are SOOOO many little tweaks that were made to the game as well. At the heart of the game, it’s still about flying ships and lining up shots. It’s about out maneuvering your opponent and then out flying them. X-Wing 2.0 really feels like it’s returning to it’s roots as squadron-based tactical dog-fighting game. FFG wanted to re-focus on actually flying the ships and the game feels like it has made lots of strides towards that.
New App Coming
FFG also shared there will be a new App for X-Wing on the way. With all the squadron building you need inside the app – including upgrades for everything. It will have lots of options for organized play and will help you build your lists. Points are included IN THE APP and only in the app. And upgrade points for one ship might be different for another!
The game sizes are going up to 200 points as well, but the ship points have basically doubled. So the game stays the same size, but now an upgrade can costing can be more granular. Plus, because it’s digital, they can update the app and “fix” point costs, mod slots, and all that jazz for everyone at the same time.
There is tons more stuff so watch the video and come back tomorrow to watch a game of X-Wing 2.0 in action!
Are you excited about X-Wing 2.0? If you have any other questions after watching the video drop them in the comments and we’ll try our best to answer them!
