Talisman Entering 5th Edition
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With the most recent announcement of the Talisman Kingdom Hearts by Pegasus Spiele, Can we expect that there are no more 4th Edition Revised Reprints coming to the players?
With little known of the game play of this edition of Talisman of even the 4th edition revised expansions, this could very well mean the end of 4th Edition Revised. This is a standalone licensed version of the game with Disney that I believe will be a good hit to anyone that enjoys the Kingdom Hearts franchise and also happens to be a board game lover, but for the people looking for the Talisman 4th Edition Revised Reprints a disappointment. All we know so far is that reprints will be of the base game in different languages. This could mean a couple things: The first is that they are going to reprint the base game to go along with the license deal with Disney that for sure cost some money to do. Another option is that we will see this release as a hold off while the 5th Edition of the game enters development stages to get released and remove the multitude of licensing agreements made in the past for the 4th Edition version of the game.
I think it’s fair to say that Talisman 4th Edition has had quite the life. At this time I cannot see them doing more than reprinting the 4th Edition Revised sets. This is because the licensing deal along with the reprinting of only the base game announced leads me to believe that Games Workshop is working on having a 5th Edition come to the players in the coming years and they need to fill the void of the game to make sure that the name stays in the public eye.
The spin off series for Talisman increases the thoughts of the business decisions by Games Workshop that this will in fact be the way they hold off to 5th Edition until it’s ready for release.
The Legendary Tales Talisman release is different enough to suggest that there is new artwork being developed as well as new ideas to the game being discovered by not just the developers of the game but even by the developers of the digital game that just released their first ever digital only large expansion called the Realm of Souls.
Can we expect more from Nomad on digital exclusive releases for the 4th Edition Revised game? That is yet to be known. I would not be surprised if they release some more characters or alternate end games to the base game before a 5th edition is announced.
The licensed agreements for the game show us that there is still life in the game after the divorce between Fantasy Flight and Games Workshop. When it comes to what I believe that we will see. I think that the Kingdom Hearts release along with the shape of the box suggests that the game will be a licensed version of 4th Edition Revised. I do notice that this version does allow for 6 players. This could lead to the work to see if if they can pull off a 6 player version of the game for a 5th Edition game in the future.
At the end of the day I think that the announcement of Talisman Kingdom Hearts spells the end for 4th Edition. It also spells the beginning of work on getting the 5th Edition created and past the complications of several licensing hand offs of the game put in the rear view. The earliest that I could expect a 5th Edition of the game would be in 2020. This can fit the release windows between editions of the game of 3rd and 4th edition from 3rd Editions 1994 release and the 2007 release of the 4th Edition.
What do you think will happen to this Franchise? Do you think that we will see a 5th Edition Release before the end of 2020? Or do you thin that we will see continued Reprints and the game focus more on the licensed out versions of the game similar to how Monopoly treats its game? I personally feel that Games Workshop knows what they are doing and that there will be a 5th Edition coming down the pipe. All these releases including reprints of only the base game suggest that they are using this as a transition period and that we will hear about a 5th Edition before the end of the year in 2019.
