Danny Schaefer – Lead Designer at Fantasy Flight Games – on what’s new with Star Wars Unlimited: Legends of the Force

Danny, it’s great to chat. Star Wars Unlimited’s latest set – Legends of the Force – landed recently. What are you most excited to be introducing to the game in this set?
There’s a lot to get excited about in Legends of the Force, but the biggest thing for me is getting to build a deck entirely around Force units and really feel rewarded for it. There are payoffs for the Force trait in the set, starting with the Force token mechanic itself, along with Force-traited units at every point along the cost curve.

Beyond that, cards like Kit Fisto, Yaddle and Always Two reward you specifically for leaning into Jedi or Sith units in your deck. Force-users have always been some of my favourite characters in Star Wars, so it’s been cool to translate that into Star Wars: Unlimited in a major way.

Were there any specific movies or moments from the franchise you revisited when putting this set together?
One of the most fun things about making Legends of the Force is that we got to draw on a wider variety of source material than maybe any other set: original trilogy, prequels, sequels, TV shows, books, comics and of course, the first Legends content to make it into the game.

I personally am excited any time I get a chance to revisit Star Wars: The Clone Wars, and I was also really happy that this set was our first chance to really dig into some High Republic content with cards like Avar Kriss, Marchion Ro and Vernestra Rwoh. For other designers on the set, I think there was a ton of excitement about digging more into video game content. We also have some serious Knights of the Old Republic fans on the team who were thrilled to get Darth Revan and Darth Malak into the game.

Last year, we spoke about how you worked out what a Darth Vader card should feel like. Folks can check out that chat here. Are there any characters in this set that you feel you’ve managed to make them feel ‘authentically’ like their characters?
There are so many in this set! Joe O’Neil, John Leo and Aaron Haltom did an incredible job as the three main designers on the set – creating cards that feel both deeply thematic and fun to play with.

One example that springs to mind is Sifo-Dyas. This is a card that very directly calls back to that character’s story arc, with the ability to search your deck for Clone units. It’s also a card that encourages a different approach to deckbuilding. In playtesting, one of the most interesting ways to play Sifo-Dyas was with the Grand Admiral Thrawn leader from Jump to Lightspeed as a way to double the When Defeated ability but that asks you to put Clone units in your Villain deck, which is unique.

Another favourite of mine from this set is Owen Lars. I love that as a 0-power unit with Restore 2 he’s a very direct callback to Moisture Farmer from Shadows of the Galaxy, but with an additional ability that really evokes the beginning of Luke’s journey in A New Hope.

Are there any cards in here that aren’t necessarily one of the ‘main’ characters or major moments, but you’re excited to have included?
While Force characters are obviously the focus of the set, I’m super excited by all the Creatures showing up on cards too. Porg is a fan-favourite with fantastic art that also has a lot of potential in competitive play as the game’s only 0-cost unit. I personally love the small package of Purrgil cards, particularly with The Purrgil King and Protect the Pod rewarding you for playing all those high-HP units.

The Force token is an interesting new addition. How do you approach adding elements that evolve the game, without ‘breaking’ the game, or making it ‘unwieldy’?
This is a great question and a topic we think about and discuss all the time as we design sets for Star Wars: Unlimited. It’s always a challenge to balance the desire for new elements to keep the game fresh and exciting with the need to ensure that complexity and power level don’t get out of hand.

I actually think the Force token mechanic is a perfect example of our design team navigating that challenge extremely well. The key is focusing on mechanics that feed into the core gameplay loops that make Unlimited fun: unit combat, sequencing, resource decisions, and so on. The Force token bases are great because what they ask of you is pretty simple: just attack with a Force unit.

In some ways, it’s rewarding you for something you want to do anyway. But it also requires specific deckbuilding and gameplay choices: you need enough Force units in your deck and you need to prioritise keeping those units in play and attacking with them early in your sequencing. And every deck has ways to disrupt the opponent attacking with units, so it guarantees that the mechanic is interactive.

Last question! What keeps you energised working on a TCG like this? What helps keep things feeling new and exciting?
Honestly, working on a trading card game is just a lot of fun! I’ve been a huge fan of TCGs for years and I never really get tired of deckbuilding or trying out new ideas. And especially as our team grows and I get farther away from the nitty-gritty of individual card design, it’s always exciting to see the cool card ideas the other designers come up with.

Terrific. Thanks again Danny!