19th December 2024

TALISMAN: DIGITAL 5th EDITION - THE REAPER CLASSIC PREVIEWS AND WINTER SALES

Hi Talisman fans!

Today we’ve got two exciting things to share with you - first, we’re going to be showing you a heap of previews and looks at the upcoming ‘Talisman: The Reaper Classic’ expansion that we’re bringing to Talisman: Digital 5th Edition.

Second, our winter sales have now officially kicked off, meaning that you can grab some great deals on Talisman (and a bunch of other digital board games we’ve worked on) on Steam, mobile and console!

To celebrate both of these things happening at the same time, we’ve just launched The Reaper Classic Bundle over on Steam, meaning you can grab the base game for Talisman: Digital 5th Edition and The Reaper Expansion together for a discounted price, so you’re all ready for when we launch it!

We’ve also made this a ‘Complete Your Collection’ bundle, meaning that if you already own The Reaper Expansion for Talisman: Digital Classic Edition (we know a lot of you do!), you still get the bundle discount on Talisman: Digital 5th Edition, as a thanks for owning The Reaper Expansion!

Check out the bundle on Steam.

Now, without further ado, let’s start showing off some of the exciting things you can expect when The Reaper Classic drops!

Characters Updated for 5th Edition

A big feature of all the expansions in Talisman is the new characters they add to the roster! For those who’ve not played with The Reaper before, we’d like you to meet The Merchant, The Dark Cultist, The Knight and The Sage!

For those of you who’ve already met them in Talisman: Digital Classic Edition, what do you think of their fresh new looks? We’ve tried to keep the iconic look that you’ve come to recognise from the many years they’ve been playable in 4th Edition, while also making them fit with the new art style of 5th Edition.

Not only have they got new looks, but we’ve also updated how these characters play to make them fit better in the 5th Edition roster. As an example, in 4th Edition the Sage has a special ability that allows you to re-roll your movement roll, but now 5th Edition has new rules about spending fate to move up to 6 spaces if you don’t like the result of your die roll.

As another example, previously the Merchant was able to ‘evade enemy dragons’ by paying 1 gold - so we needed to make it clear that you can’t bribe the Elder Dragon at the end of the game!

Updated Artwork

Alongside all the characters in the expansion getting a new look, we’ve taken all of the cards from the original Reaper Expansion and given them the 5th Edition treatment! Check some of them out below:

Our awesome art team have worked extremely hard to keep the original design and outline of the 4th Edition artwork, while updating the style of each card to match the look and feel of 5th Edition.

Oh, and of course you can look forward to seeing all these new pieces of artwork with awesome parallax effect 3D artwork too!

5th Edition Rules

We mentioned this in our original developer blog for The Reaper Classic, but remastering this expansion to fit with the 5th Edition ruleset isn’t just a case of updating the artwork and calling it a day!

With the transition from 4th to 5th Edition, a ton of rules were either updated or changed, so we knew we’d need to look at each classic expansion with that in mind. However, after doing a thorough look-through of each and every card in the original Reaper expansion, we actually only found a handful of cards that needed changing!

One element that definitely did need updating was The Reaper himself - given that the new rules in 5th Edition make death less of a setback than it was in 4th Edition, we wanted to make sure that The Reaper didn’t lose any of the fear players are used to feeling as he wanders the board.

So, we’ve implemented two different options for players to choose from: Modern Reaper and Classic Reaper - and with the Classic version, you’ll suffer all the penalties from death that you would in 4th Edition. Brutal!

New Visual Effects

For anyone who’s played Talisman: Digital 5th Edition, you’ll have noticed that our team have put special effort into visual effects that play when certain cards and effects are triggered. Not only does this make the board more dynamic to look at, it also helps players visually identify when certain key events happen to the board (or to their opponents!).

With the new cards and the Reaper NPC, we wanted to carry on that good work, and we’ve added some more subtle effects to the board when certain things happen. These are quite ready yet, but we’ll be showing them off in the new year!

Bonus Cards

For any Talisman: Digital Classic Edition fans out there, we’re sure you’ll recognise these two cards:

But for those of you who purchased the physical version of The Reaper when it was originally launched, you might remember that these two cards were given away for anyone who pre-ordered the Reaper expansion!

You’ll be pleased to know that you don’t need to preorder anything this time around - we’ve added both of these cards into the pool of adventure cards in Talisman: Reaper Classic Expansion. Enjoy!

Alternative Ending

With The Reaper Classic, we needed to add a feature to Talisman: Digital 5th Edition that is another staple for experienced players - alternative endings! Specifically, the Dance Macabre ending gets added to the game as part of the Expansion.

We’re planning on adding a ‘Choose Your Alternative Ending’ page to the game in the near future, but given that there are currently only 3 endings available when The Reaper Classic launches, we’re waiting until there are a few more before we design a whole selection screen for it!

Deck Editor Reaper Cards

One of the biggest new features in Talisman: Digital 5th Edition is The Deck Editor, and because of it, adding a new expansion to the game means much more than it ever did before!

The Reaper Classic adds a whole heap of new cards to the 5th Edition base game, so even if you’re not using the Reaper NPC or any of the new characters added, the extra options for customising the adventure deck are massive!

If you’ve checked out our roadmap then you’ll also know that we’re planning on rolling out improvements for the Deck Editor too, so keep an eye out for a future developer blog where we’ll go into more detail on what you can expect!

Remember, to keep up with everything Talisman: Digital 5th Edition, make sure you follow us on all the places we are online!

And if you haven’t grabbed it already, you can currently get 10% off Talisman: Digital 5th Edition as part of the Steam Winter Sale.