Blog – Why I’m quitting X-wing

I never really blog, but why not. It’s no secret anymore Fantasy Flight Games is rebooting their super successful and one of my personal favorite games X-wing the miniatures game. And I hate it.

– be aware this entire blog is based on speculation!-

They are calling it X-wing Second Edition and it has a lot of cool new features such as an special app, new designs, the force, and it’s even more geared towards flying! Wow, this sounds like a game for me! But then why do I hate it so much?

As a developer I applaud what Fantasy Flight is doing. It’s a bold move a reboot. But cleaning up a game and working out the kinks before it becomes a total frankenstein is a good thing. The app for instance and it’s integration is really, did I say really? I meant really good. I see it solving so many squad point and balancing problems as well as serving as a long awaited official tool to manage your squads. Action geared more towards flying can never be a bad thing, though I wonder how they would accomplish that in a game already doing it so well.

But X-Wing Second Edition is not X-wing. It’s a new game based on X-Wing. And I can’t help but feel like Fantasy Flight threw away our childhood blanky and replaced it with a shiny new one. Yes it stank, yes it was patched, yes it was dirty. But it was ours. We grew up with it, played with it and explored the universe with it. Ultimately it was what we all loved. I, and many with me, invested in X-Wing. Not only with monetarily but also emotionally. With time, lists, forum posts, tactics, research… our devotion as fans. X-Wing Second Edition might be a great game -and I know it will be- but it’s not my X-Wing.

And the money.. Oh.. the sweet money. We all know how it goes. We’ve all spend hundreds of dollars on ships for which we now again need to spend hundreds of dollars to make playable again. And again we will need to buy ships we don’t even want just for the upgrades. About that, this “monetization” scheme already was a kick in the balls for X-Wing. But I am not knowingly and willingly going to buy them AGAIN, in the form of conversion kits just to make my ships playable. I just won’t, and frankly can’t.

Could they have gone in a different direction? Off course. Maybe a new rule book or introduce the app and slowly phase out obsolete stuff. Make the conversion kits free or downloadable… But does it matter? No, they made the right choice, I just don’t like it. For me, I will keep playing MY X-Wing, and without new content it will slowly sink into the swamps of dagobah…. to be forgotten… until someone drags it out again.