In the recent Living Card Game Fireside Chat, FFG Head of Studio Jim Cartwright introduced product retirement and the idea of distinguishing between a “Current Environment” and a “Legacy Environment” in our cooperative LCGs. This article takes a closer look at these concepts, particularly through the lens of asking how their introduction might impact or influence our design philosophy moving forward

“Wait…What Are We Talking About?”

If you missed the Fireside Chat, it’s probably worth reviewing what these concepts are.

Essentially, starting later this year, older expansion products for our LCG lines will begin to be retired, which means that we will no longer be reprinting those products, and that they are no longer considered to be a part of the Current Environment.

This practice allows us to define a more accessible Current Environment, which consists of the core set, any other evergreen (perpetually in print) expansions, as well as the newer expansions that have not yet been retired. In practice, this will be approximately 2–3 years’ worth of active expansions; precise lists of what is considered Current Environment will be maintained and updated by each line as new products are released or as older products are retired.

The definition of the Legacy Environment is pretty straightforward: any product that has ever been printed for the game is a part of this environment. All products within each game line will always be compatible with all other products from that line, which means if you have a card, you can play it in Legacy. For those who have been playing one of the games for a while, nothing about the Legacy Environment is technically new except for the name. Up until now, each game’s (only) environment has been, “if you have a card, it’s part of the environment.” With this change, long-time players can now choose between playing with all of the cards in Legacy, playing with just the new cards in Current, or bouncing back and forth between the formats as they see fit.

“But We Liked the Games the Way They Were…Why Change?”

While these changes will impact design, it is important to remember that the impetus behind the change was not primarily for the sake of that impact. More than anything else, these changes are being introduced to make the LCGs more accessible and (by virtue of that increased accessibility) more sustainable long-term.

By establishing and emphasizing the Current Environment, an LCG is more appealing and manageable for a retailer to keep in stock, and newer players are not intimidated, confused, and/or turned away by a never-ending wall of product. Such barriers have caused former LCGs to collapse under their own weight, and the primary goal of introducing this change is to avoid these obstacles and continue to publish new content for each line for years to come.

“These are Co-op Games…So Why Does Environment Matter?”

The idea of “set rotation,” in which sets of cards rotate out of a standard environment after a couple of years of availability, is not new to anyone who has played a competitive TCG. The benefits noted in the previous section (retailers don’t have to stock older sets after they have rotated, and new players don’t have to feel that they need the older cards to get into the game) are part of the reasoning for rotation, but the idea of “competitive balance” is tied into the reasoning as well. Which leads to the question, why define Current and Legacy environments at all for a cooperative game? Why not just retire products and let the resulting environment be whatever it becomes from group to group?

To explore an answer to these questions, let’s start with a simple example. Imagine a neutral Arkham Horror: The Card Game event card that costs 1 resource, and as an action deals 3 damage to a Ghoul enemy at your location.

Is this a good card?

The answer to that question depends entirely on the environment. What are the other 1-cost event cards that are available? Are there more efficient, non-event means of dealing damage? How likely are we to encounter a Ghoul when we play? How much damage does it usually take to defeat a Ghoul? Are there any incentives or disincentives for playing neutral cards? Notice how none of these questions are about the example card itself, but all of them refer to the rest of the environment.

Questions like these, and dozens more, inform the way in which we think (consciously and subconsciously), feel, and talk (with others in the community) about the card. And that is but one simple, straightforward card — similar types of environmental context are carried by every card in the game. In a nutshell, these thoughts, feelings, and conversations are the way we experience the game.

Are these considerations more important in a “competitive” (human vs. human) game than they are in a “cooperative” (human(s) vs. encounter deck) game? That’s debatable, and the answer will likely vary depending on whom you ask. For our purposes, the fact that such considerations exist as part of the cooperative LCG experience is enough to establish that having a clearly defined and well-cultivated environment is an important feature for our LCGs to maintain.

“How Do These Changes Affect FFG’s Approach to Design?”

As our cooperative LCGs are moving into this new era for the reasons outlined above, there are a number of ancillary benefits that present themselves to our design teams. We are excited by the promise of the following opportunities and look forward to exploring them through our design efforts.

The first and most significant of these opportunities is the ability to increase our focus on the Current Environment. Testing a new set of cards across a card pool with almost a hundred other products to establish the desired power level (for player cards) or difficulty (for each scenario) consumes a lot of bandwidth. Being able to sharpen the lens and really zoom in and emphasize the Current Environment throughout the development process will be invaluable for our designers as well as for our playtesters. This doesn’t mean we are going to completely abandon the Legacy Environment; what it does mean is that we will be focusing more heavily on optimizing the Current Environment, and if a design decision emerges where Legacy is pulling in one direction and Current is pulling in the other, we will always prioritize the direction that makes the Current experience better. It’s also likely that for players who enjoy the format, part of the appeal of the Legacy format will be to see and experience a more unbound version of the game, so it’s ok if there are a few more outrageous combos and “I can’t believe that just happened” moments within Legacy play.

The second such opportunity can be encapsulated by the word impact. When a new card is released, the size of the environment into which it is being released is going to play a significant role in how impactful that card is on the environment. Larger environments are more likely to grow stagnant (in which the same cards and strategies continually rise to the top as the best way to play); smaller environments are more likely to shift. This means that over time, as a card pool grows, the promise of each new card that is released is lessened: power creep aside, new cards become less and less impactful over time. Once a concept like product retirement is introduced, the Current Environment will evolve in a much more dynamic way, as newer cards have less competition, as older staples leave, and as new answers are discovered. This all combines to allow our design teams to be far more deliberate in how they craft the experience of each play environment, allowing the game to evolve at a more exciting rate, thereby feeling refreshed and more novel with each new release.

The third opportunity these changes present is an increased level of design freedom. Sometimes, there are cards or decks that restrict or even entirely close off design space in a card pool. Maybe it’s due to an interaction, maybe it’s due to a card’s raw efficiency, or maybe it’s due to a critical mass of similar cards within the pool. Whatever the case may be, the introduction and prioritization of the Current Environment, combined with the idea that most products will eventually be retired to Legacy, frees our designers to explore ideas in some of these areas that have previously been limited or closed off. This additional freedom enables more precise design for each character, deck, or scenario, making the overall game better in the process.

Right now, these details are a glimpse behind the scenes, impacting how we are approaching the design of future sets.  More information regarding the exact makeup of each game’s first Current Environment, along with some tips from that game’s design team regarding how to get the most out of each environment, will be forthcoming as those details are developed. A likely ETA for the launch of the Current Environment as an official format is early 2026. Until then, you can continue to enjoy the games as always, playing within a single environment that contains every card.

Closing Thoughts

As previously noted, these changes mark a new evolution for our LCGs, and as we begin to craft new sets for these formats, it is likely that we will learn more about what we can and cannot do on the design side. LCGs have changed quite a bit over the years, and they will inevitably continue to evolve in the future. We look forward to exploring this next era with you.

Nate French
LCG Design Lead
Fantasy Flight Games