By Firestone In their continuing effort to get me to deposit my paychecks directly into their bank accounts, Fantasy Flight announced yesterday that the new Star Wars: The Card Game expansion, Balance of the Force, includes two new multiplayer options, and new objective sets.

Expansion designer Nate French says, "[This] was a project that grew in the making. The original vision was to allow two to three light side players to join forces against a single powerful dark side player. It was an exciting vision for the product, but as we started developing it, we began to realize that the game’s multiplayer format also held the potential to bring even more to the game.

“Instead of only allowing the light side to play as a team,” we asked in early development talks, “why not enable team play for both light side and dark side?” Once that question was on the table, everything else fell quickly into place.

To enable a single player to take on a two or three player team of opponents, Balance of the Force introduces the concept of the challenge deck scenario to the Star Wars: The Card Game experience. A challenge deck scenario is a powerful, self-contained, narrative-based deck that is piloted by one player against two or three challengers. Balance of the Force contains two challenge decks, Jerjerrod’s Task and The Hunt for Skywalker.

Each challenge deck presents a story-based scenario, in which light and dark side players work against each other to accomplish specific goals.

As we developed the challenge decks, we also implemented a number of new rules that enable teammates to work together. We invented a “common reserve” that enables players to pass one card to a teammate each round, and we introduced support attack and support defense mechanics that enable a player to assist his teammates in combat, as well as a number of other innovations to promote teamwork and camaraderie.

Working together with other players and trying to figure out the best common strategy for the team proved to be quite engaging, and we really wanted to capture this experience for the broader card pool. The result was the new two-versus-two format. Balance of the Force introduces a new rules set for both playing and deck-building in this format. Playing two-versus-two is an excellent way to rediscover the card pool, as a number of existing cards take on an entirely new meaning in a multiplayer environment.

Is this exciting to you? Is it enough to make you interested in the game if you weren't before? Fantasy Flight is saying 4th quarter of this year. Stay tuned...

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