Betrayal at House on the Hill is getting a legacy game in 2018

After transforming Risk and Pandemic into hugely popular legacy games, designer Rob Daviau is turning his magic touch to another big hit: Betrayal at House on the Hill.

Betrayal Legacy combines the horror adventure game known for its traitor mechanic – in which one player randomly becomes an evil presence in one of 50 different scenarios in the original box – with the connected storytelling, irreversible modification (or destruction) of cards and components, and evolving mechanics seen in Pandemic Legacy, Risk Legacy and Daviau’s solo project SeaFall.

Betrayal Legacy is set over a longer time span than Pandemic Legacy’s 12-month framing, with a prologue and 13 chapters taking place over the course of several decades in the universe.

The players’ group will record their actions and outcomes, crafting a unique story based on roughly a third of the 50 different haunts that can randomly occur during a single playthrough – but an important point is that the game can still be played once completed, meaning the rest of the scenarios could be experienced post-finale.

Players will be able to play as characters in one scenario, only to return later as older versions or descendants of the same characters in later sections – if they survive, that is. The families will be able to make their mark on items they discover, with specific tools being passed down between generations and potentially gaining extra significance and gameplay bonuses.

Fittingly, the game actually marks a return to Betrayal at House on the Hill for Daviau himself, more than a decade after he worked on the 2004 game while at Hasbro – the same role that later led him to create Risk Legacy, his first title based on the innovative format.

Daviau also contributed to last year’s expansion, Widow’s Walk, while Betrayal at House on the Hill was spun off into the world of Dungeons & Dragons with Betrayal at Baldur’s Gate this year.

We’ll learn more about Betrayal Legacy by the time it’s released in the last quarter of 2018 – hinting at a potential launch at Essen in October.