What is Free League not doing? I was blown away a year or so ago when I grabbed the starter set for Forbidden Lands, and now I'm seeing all these other products and I'm just in awe. Truly the hero kings of TRPGs at the moment.

Your initial Con was present during the original game, those who grew up in the days of the Cold War had a thought of global annihilation . It was actually therapeutic to play the game and make light of man’s demise.

Cons: Setting is a downer. Me, a 40k fan: You get used to it.

Great Review. As an old Grognard who played the original back in the 80's (and served in the real military in the 90's) this is a great re-boot of an old favorite (I too own this new boxed set). I think you might be missing a little bit of fan service that was catered to by FLP in the design of the game. There is a very large community of TW2K gamers out there who are very...lets say particular...about their vehicles and weapons. I think that FLP got it RIGHT when they added all of the gear & vehicle choices. To US we want to see both an M16A1 AND stats for an M16A2. Just having stats for an "US Assault Rifle" won't cut it in this community (who probably were the first Kickstarter backers who funded this.) I know modern gamers may want a streamlined, more cinematic type of play but the TW2K community out there wants the minutiae. We want ALL the versions of the M1 Battle Tank (maybe even the M1A3 "Giraffe" you Grognards out there know what I'm talkin bout!) This is a very important aspect that the game designers were very clear from the beginning that they would include. Just look at the third party weapons and vehicles books already available on DriveThruRPG.com. Not a ding on your review but perhaps an insight to an area you did not realize.

That's an interesting perspective on the setting. One of the reasons I was interested in Twilight 2000 is that I want a generic, plausible post apocalyptic setting where I could maybe tell my own stories, without being weighed down by the quirks of some other setting like Fallout, MYZ or Degenesis.

1:49 ahahaha, Kalisz being presented as a middle of nowhere war torn country is such an insult to all my friends from Kalisz, they're gonna love this xD

Me and my battle buddies played the original Twilight: 2000 when we were stationed in Germany in the late 80's. Had war broken out for real, we would have been LARP'ing. This version looks like it scaled down the complexity of the various weapon systems - for the better - but it was also those details that drew us to the game in the first place.

Who is here in 2022 because we are about to live this out for real?

I played the original edition GDW game in the 80's and during the cold war and Ronald Reagan's evil Soviet Empire rhetoric we really did feel that the poo was going to strike the fan before the decade was over. Strangely Gamma World felt comfortable and fun. Aftermath, The Morrow Project and Twilight 2000 felt like training manuals for our near future.

Idk I love depressing settings. I wouldn't want to live in it of course, but it's always beautiful to see what it can become.

Free League is just killing it with these box sets.

Since I had discovered your channel two months ago, I've bought two games from Free League, the Forbidden Lands bundle and Mörk Borg. Every time I watch one of your videos, my wallet cries a little. This looks cool as hell.

Traveller:2300AD is the cannon sequal of the original game from GDW. So there is hope it's just 300 years from then and none of the characters around during the Twilight Wars will see humanity reach the stars.

I play the original, and I wasn't a real fan of any of the reboots to the point where I generally just ignored this one. Back in the day, My group got back to the US, but it became a whole new level of suck, as the team started linking up and getting both- back to their own homes and their own adventures, and later, took them to "Armies of the Night" as they once again signed up to MilGov, and set about trying to establish a base in NYC. Sadly, soon after, we ended up growing up and heading out into the world in real life...

Personally I find the setting cathartic. Right now we're always feeling on the brink, just about to go over the edge. But in twilight 2000 you're in resolution phase after the orgasm of violence that is a nuclear war. The worst has already happened, so now you're just trying to get to something better.

"Character sheets that you can directly write on if you're some kind of monster." @5:00 - LOVE it :)

Great review! As an old gamer, I will say, imagine how close to home it was when playing the game during the Cold War.

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I get what you said about the game in its setting. Although personally I really like the post apocalypse, taking place close to our times, it gives the game/ and just games in media in general a gritty relevance; I get it some people want to play games set in a fantastical universe and escape into another world (I mean I do as well sometimes). But I just like the seemingly grimness/ anxiousness that this could be a probable outcome we could see today. Something that interests me.

I'm the very proud owner of this gorgeous box set. Can't wait to get started with my players :)

I like that your 2 "cons" are not an issue for me because I grew up under constant worry of nuclear war and I played the original so now I can look up the names with the internet with a sound pronunciation... we just sounded like idiots back in 1984.

A friend of mine bought the original Twilight 2000 game back in the Eighties. Like _half_ of the pages in the rulebook were about how the US army was organized. We never played a single game.

Twilight 2000 and Morrow Project were both compelling post-nuclear war RPG games that had different ideas of how the world function (or not) after a nuke war.

Free League > Wizards of the Coast

Those boxed sets are amazing with just how much they packed in with tools for the game! I do agree though that when a setting is dark it's nice to have hope. The hope can serve to mix up the emotion of the game. I will get tired of just being beaten down without something to root for.

I remember playing the original T2000 box set in the 80s living in the US. Again, all of this was very close to home with the threat of nuclear war. Here today, I have a new box, new wars, same advisaries as before. Only now I'm old and live in the EU.

Twilight 2000 has never been a war simulator. The system for versions 1-2.2 were simulationist, but broadly so. It probably has one of the first and still most detailed system for survival with rules related to everything from temperature, starvation, disease and infection to sleep deprivation. The focus has always been about post war survival and the lore between 4th and older versions is virtually unchanged. The only significant difference is the inclusion of a Swedish campaign. The developers did a pretty good job of transferring T2Ks themes and mechanical elements into the year zero system without diluting the various elements that had always made T2K attractive. T2K has a cult following that is particular when it comes to the harsher elements of the game that wouldn't be received well if overly simplified or glossed over.

The travel and hex rules in this game look awesome. I'd love to see more systems that emphasize exploration done on this channel. I'm going to be running Mythras in the Summer and having to adapt something for myself from someplace else has been a little daunting. (It'll be my first time with hexcrawl) Taking suggestions while I'm at it!

I've played the 2nd edition twilight using Merc 2000 where the war didn't go nuclear and that is much more fun. No downer.

I haven't gotten to far into reading my copy yet but it definitely looks and feels beautiful. Great Review. 👍

Solid review... Have had the metal tin sitting on my shelf for weeks now. Haven't dug into it but now I'm a lot more motivated to play it after watching your take. Thanks for great content.

This is a really good review! The way you are talking, the summary of stuff and then the good questions. Keep up the good work! I will definitely prescribe to your channel. Thanks.

Personally I can't wait for Blade Runner from Free League, what a company!

I like your review. Think it's pretty good. However the devil Is always in the details. For example the difference between a M1 Abrams and a M1A1 Abrams in real life is pretty huge. What you say is a slightly different main gun is actually a pretty big deal. The main gun on the M1 Abrams is a 105mm smooth bore cannon. Where as the main gun on the M1A1 is a 120mm smooth bore cannon. The 120mm cannon is the exact same cannon that is used by the German Leopard 2 tanks. Which mean ammo inter changeability. In a game where scrounging for more beans, boots, and bullets. Are going to be a big deal. Those details make a difference, and add flavor to the game.

The setting has always hit close to home in past editions: it's supposed to, given the theme of the system.

It was pretty popular, as far as non-D&D tabletop RPGs go, back in the '80s when it first came out. When the possibility of a WW3 apocalyptic scenario was quite real, more so than now. Yet it was still a closet hit, and one of the few games which broke from the usual fantasy & sci-fi. I occasionally see some complaints about the weapon porn it was known for, but I view all those weapons and vehicles as replacing what would normally be monster abilities and 'magic' items in fantasy RPGs. Since there will only be conflict with other humans in this one, they're part of both the encounter variety and loot. I find the hexcrawling rules most interesting in this. They somewhat remind me of the similar rules in The One Ring albeit with the modern warfare & gritty apocalyptic survival flavor. Given the scale and detail of the combat mechanics, I expect they'll release some expansion for urban warfare in the interior of buildings at a more intimate room-to-room scale. The core set is heavily focused on outdoor rules while combat indoors seems like it requires some hand waving or down-scaling with your own custom maps if you want an interior showdown.

So after several months of actually running this game I have some observations. First: I did have to make a houserule on language for the setting since it is basically not covered in the books and having such a multinational group of characters (My current group is a French combat engineer, a burn out american vehicle commander, a US marine, a British officer and a polish teenager partisan fighter/medic) The game really needed some rules for language barriers since it has been a fun part of the roleplay experience. For instance, the vehicle commander speaks pretty good polish but the teenager barely speaks any english and it has been a fun interaction to see the group trying to stumble through communicating with her. Second: This game as it is presented has wonderful potential for a game master to make an incredibly deep hex crawl where there is an overarching story happening in the background but it is how the players travel and interact with the encounters the GM has populated the map with that allows for an organic story to emerge and tie directly into that background plot. Third: You can be as deep or shallow with the fundamental gear porn minutia as you want. I am incredibly knowledgeable about firearms, both military and civilian and that is useful but most of my players are not so it has been largely something that can just be ignored in play, if a player has a question about a specific firearm or caliber that their character would know about I have an easy time answering it, such as the difference between nato 9mm and russian 9mm, but largely has been irrelevant outside a couple of edge cases. Fourth: The initiative cards do NOT translate well to a Roll20, and I was forced to basically homerule a new initiative system, probably my one complaint with the system. 100% recommend the game, very fun just come up with a good rule on language barriers unless you are playing in a linguistically homogeneous area. The way I did it was that I gave languages ranks pretty much exactly like the attributes and skills, the higher your rank in a language the easier it is for you to convey intent, so my scale goes like this: None, Bare, Sparse, Basic, Conversational, Fluent. With the linguistic trait giving a second language all the way at fluent and every rank of empathy and persuasion allowing a character to add a rank to a language or allowing characters to gain skill in language either through XP spent or through exposure to it.

Another solid review Dave! I really love the Free League box sets. This game might hit a little too close to home to play this year though

Solid review nicely done and ty for this!

This was an excellent and thorough review of a game I have ever watched. Great Job!

The thing that I always found hard to swallow my disbelief on was that the two major nuclear powers had a nuclear slug fest but for some reason limited themselves to tactical nuclear exchanges and never used any strategic nuclear assets. Though if strategic nuclear arsenals were unleashed there wouldn't be any survivors to be the characters, or we would be playing fallout.

I just found out about this game from a friend yesterday and this video best explains and expands on what my friend said about it. I cant wait to play this game.

Summer Sale! Just picked it up - couldn't resist at the sale price!

Twilight 2000 aged like sandwich left in backpack and forgotten for a year.

Thank you for sharing your thoughts on this system. It definitely hits differently these days.

I’m gonna try to convince my group to give this a try if not maybe find a group online if possible but definitely right down my alley

Love your videos, thanks!

Amazing as usual...and now I want to buy twilight 2000... if I ever end up broke...just so you know, you played a part in it.😆

Thank you for another great review 🙂

Great review Thanks for info. Some sort of Monster lol Good one!

I'm playing the T2K 2nd Mexican-American War now. This game is awesome!

3:35 the roads on this map are weird. Some of those presented have only been built in the last 5 or 6 years, but not all of those are shown. Surely it doesn't show roads in Poland as they existed in the year 2000

Great review. Thanks very much.

As an American expat living too close to what’s happening now in Ukraine, I’m simultaneously attracted and averse to playing this one. It’s gorgeous, like everything by Free League. But I’m already having nightmares of the bombs dropping. Hoping with every fiber of my being that cooler heads prevail.

you know how lots of RPGs have combat rules that heavily imply some sort of grid board and minis/markers to track positions of everyone, yet they do not provide anything to do so? Well, Twilight 2000 4e isn't one of them. btw check out The Fantasy Trip

Fantastic. I've been looking for a no-magic system to run modern combat roleplay campaigns in.

Hi! Your channel has the best RPG reviews in my humble opinion. I had the first edition of Twilight 2000, this latest edition is far superior, I think.

Still have my Twilght:2000 game and miniatures.

i played the original T:2000. it wasnt about tactics any more than a D&D game is. original also didnt tell you how to start- it left that to the players and gm to decided.

I'm not a big fan of wargames in general, and I don't play any Warhammer 40k style miniature combat games either. But I am a giant Free League fanboy, so when I saw this core box on sale during Boxing Day week, I figured I'd check it out. Not disappointed at all. This core box is amazing bang for the buck. You get so so much value in this thing. And the game itself is wonderfully written to boot. Honestly, the only "drawback" to Free League's games is that they still fly under the radar for many TTRPG gamers, which might be due to how very new Year Zero engine games are when compared to other well established franchises.

Free league is one of my favorite publishers, Tales from the Loop is my favorite RPG of all time

This all hits different today.

Łódź is pronounced sort of like Wootch, if you can believe it.

I mean, it's not like your characters would be speaking perfect Polish either if they're just Westerners who got deployed over there. Lean into the linguistic butchery. I started looking at this game mostly looking for a good port for Stargate, but damn, the more I see the more this looks genuinely interesting in its own right. I'm thinking about what a game set in Korea might look like.

Good stuff, as usual. Civilization is going to be fine, right?... right??!

Can´t wait for whatever the Walking Dead Game will look like when it comes out this year. Just bought this box and it is really impressive

Still have my first edition. Had a campaign that had a pretty good run.

Awesome!

They missed a trick not tying the lore from there 80's and 90's games into this story..

I wonder if I could use this for something like The Division

Your cons are my pros lmao

Playing Red Dawn or Jericho in this was interesting

Sadly free league games are not sold from where i am and even if i say use amazon or ebay the currency of my country would mean its going to be a premium. That said this ruleset might be nice to use as a base for a different apocalypse setting, maybe combine the twilight 2000 rules for human pcs with the rules for mutant year zero for the mutant pcs.

In the 80's we had Tales From the Loop, in the 90's we have Things from the Flood and in the new millennium we have fucking World War 3

Good review. I get what you mean about being a bit close to home. I would not be setting a game in Ukraine.

Dave’s reviews are superb! I really like the honesty and humanity in this review. In all his reviews, the level of detail that he goes to is perfect to make an “interested to play it” or not decision, and I love the selection of games he’s chosen to review. For example I always wanted to know what this game and Burning Wheel were about (in a straight to the point, good and not-so-good aspects kind of way), and Dave has them both covered on his channel. Add to that ultra-new games such as Ironsworn Starforged and there’s a wealth of tasty material here, beautifully presented and expertly explained. If Dave could do a presentation on SAP S/4HANA Cloud ECM or quantum entanglement, which I’m sure he could, I bet I’d finally understand them too 😉. Really great content!

I love RPG Twilight 2000!

Who knows, maybe they have some maps out, but they are a Swedish publisher.

Different from the fantasy world created in many board games, Twilight 2000 is close to the real world in terms of drawing style and story setting. I really like the way that the explanation in the video is synchronized with the movement of the tokens on the map. Eastar is proud to be the maker of this board game. If you want to know more about the production of board games, please contact us~

This is ageing well

Seems interesting! I'm just getting into TTRPGs... What should I start with aside from D&D and Pathfinder?

Free League needs to incorporate the fact that T2K players are spread out across the world. A lot of us been creating our own T2K adventure scenerios without our hands being held by the publisher. I wish that the publisher could engage us and allow us to collaborate with them to grow this game. They should consider bringing us into a game-sharing royalty system. I've talk to other T2K players who've been playing since the 80s. A lot of smart minds are out here. Let's bring them into the game under a unified system. Without collaboration and rewards - we'll just keep backpacking alone. Yes, I guess i'm talk about T2K monetization scheme for players something like the crypto "play to earn" system. This will talk a lot of talk and negotating. What id T2K created a DAO? Another idea. Never under estimate the T2K community because we are some of the smartest people of this planet. I love you guys!

It is very clear that we need this game now!

If I get this I might have to use a D20. All the custom dice is really offputting.

Could you play the game with 28mm miniatures?

In my game i run it in the future and the Chinese and some Russian military and Russian mercenaries are the invasion force. I do not care for the alternative timeline story myself.

Please post more T2K videos.

Looks interesting. Ordered the boxed set. I think it’s relevant today with Russia threatening to invade Ukraine & having annexed Crimea. Poland warned Europe is under threat of war again.

I looks like the game is doing what is sets out to do and it is also very clear about "what it is". Which is good. But I feel uncomfortable about its gun fetish survivalism focus (and the setting). It seems to be all about calibers of guns, tactical maps and millitary style action. Which seems very "American"... It does not appeal to me that the focus on story and roleplay are clearly sooo low on their list. It is sandboxy, with random encounters and resource management better suited for a boardgame.

we got a good 20 years left before the shite hits the fan for good... play games, have fun

Good one Dave! Your thoughts were the same thoughts I had when the original Twilight 2000 came out. I was impressed by the game, and maybe I could enjoy a session or two but in the end I fear it would be like watching Red Dawn or Hobo with a Shotgun, non-stop for hours on end. I got better things to do with my time.

You asked for Polish letters. Here you have it: kzfaq.info/get/bejne/rNWHgJl6p8_ZnHU.html

Great system. I will buy it and never going to play it. I live on the map of the game. With all what is happening with Ukraine, it is just too spooky...

10:54 you know, it's not like Polish isn't in google translate, for starters xD why treat Polish like some sort of lost, incomprehensible language? xD

Cons: Setting is a downer.... Seriously? You're looking at a post apoc war RPG and surprised it's a "downer"? The whole point of the game was to be the poor bastards that were trying to build something decent out of the shit-sandwich they were handed. Gen X lived with this shadow over our heads, the game was therapeutic .

Imma be honest, we started a campaign about a year ago, and i had to stop it because what was happening in Ukraine was too close to the game. Now we started it up again a few months ago to celebrate the tenacity and never quit of the same conflict. Slava Ukraini!

I think we may see Twilight 2023 in real life... set it in Ukraine and or Poland & Romania then add in worldwide economic collapse and starvation that follows...

Doomers gotta doom. XD

i might get this game to to war game the stuff going on in the Ukraine verse Russia war

If it bothers you, maybe you should play something a little less stressful, gamers are so soft-skinned these days compared to back in the day, it's a game of survival period, and during the cold war, far more dangerous than these days. lol