Star Wars: Unlimited Review - Trading Card Gaming’s New Hope

Over the past few weeks, we've been luckily enough to playtest materials from the new Star Wars: Unlimited trading card game, releasing now from Fantasy Flight Games. A newcomer in the space, we wanted to see how it stacks up to Magic: The Gathering and Disney Lorcana. Now that we've played with the Starter Set, in a Sealed tournament, and in a draft, we're ready to give our full thoughts! Read on for our Star Wars: Unlimited review!

Want to get an overall guide to the game? Check out our Star Wars: Unlimited guide live on the site now!

What Is Star Wars: Unlimited?

Star Wars: Unlimited is a new trading card game set in the Star Wars universe. Produced by Fantasy Flight games and hitting shelves March 8th, Star Wars: Unlimited ushers in a brand new card battling system tied to the beloved franchise. With multiple formats and ways to play (which we cover in our guide), this collectible card game has something for most TCG players.

How Do You Play Star Wars: Unlimited?

Star Wars: Unlimited is played between two players (in the standard format of the game, there are also multiplayer formats which we’ll cover in our Guide to Star Wars: Unlimited). To win the game, players try to deal enough damage to destroy their opponent’s base.

In the "Premier" format of the game (that's like Standard in MTG), each player brings a deck of 50+ cards to battle against their opponent, along with a leader and a base, and each Base has a set amount of damage it can sustain before being destroyed. By playing unit cards, special event actions, and utilizing your leader’s ability (and bringing them onto the battlefield), you’ll build a force worthy of the emperor.

Two Arenas Of Attack

One of the aspects of the game that I find really compelling is the idea of there being two different attack zones. One is a dedicated “Space” arena, and the other is a dedicated “Ground” arena. In this way, you can field your X-Wings in your space arena, and R2-D2 on your ground arena, without having to do the mental gymnastics to imagine them fighting side by side.

This also inherently opens up more of strategic lines of play. Overall there are far more Ground forces than Space forces. But how will that impact your deck building? Will you focus on your air forces, ground forces, or spread your units across both? This push and pull opens up a lot of game space that I noticed immediately - changing the way I thought about my forces.

Units As Resources

Another aspect of the game that kept me on my toes is the way the cards you play are used as resources in this game. Disney Lorcana also does this, where you have to choose cards from your hand to effectively remove from the game and play face-down on the table as the resources you’ll need to pay for your other cards.

So unlike adding in a bunch of Islands and Forests like in Magic: The Gathering, here every card is a potential resource you can put down instead of playing it on the table. This adds a clever element of strategy to the game, will you resource a card that’s powerful but costs a lot to play? Did you just resource the answer to an opponent’s nasty unit they just played? These questions arise time and again through this clever design decision.

The Art Of Star Wars: Unlimited

I really appreciate the style and design of the art on display in the cards of Star Wars: Unlimited. Illustrated by a series of artists, but all following a clearly strong and clear design ethos, there’s a uniformity to the cards while allowing each artist’s talents to shine through.

I love that the game doesn’t lean on stills from the films and TV series, or even older art from previous Star Wars Games. Instead, it all feels really fresh and very bright.

Star Wars: Unlimited - Final Thoughts

When you total up all of the above, it's plain to see that I'm very, very into Star Wars: Unlimited. The gameplay decisions heaped on the player -- whether that be in Draft, Sealed, or constructing a Premier deck -- are elegant, complex, and satisfying. This is a game that has in its DNA a lot of what we loved from the now-defunct Fantasy Flight game Star Wars: Destiny, and you can feel that smart approach to design within it.

From the moment I first played it at PAX Unplugged to an informal Draft I participated in last night, this game has had its hooks in me. If you're on the fence about trying it out, I cannot recommend Star Wars: Unlimited highly enough. It absolutely is Trading Card Gaming's New Hope.

The products used in the creation of this review were provided by Fantasy Flight Games. All images courtesy of the author.