Blood Bowl 2: Legendary Edition is a the latest in the Blood Bowl monster sports franchise, offering new teams and gameplay to the already popular game.
Since its release in 2015, Blood Bowl 2 has slowly gathered a loyal and dedicated following who have no doubt been champing at the bit since Cyanide Studios announced that they would be releasing a legendary edition of the game. But is this just an attempt to resell the fans the same game again?
Well thankfully with the Legendary Edition they have given fans of the original version the option to upgrade their copy to this version as well as assembling all the team DLC’s into one handy download. Of course the option is also there to just buy the legendary edition of the game, though sadly this version of the game is only available as a digital download with no plans it would seem to release a physical copy of this edition.
Seeing how we reviewed the original game already, this review instead will focus purely on what this latest edition of the game gives to players, which not only adds new features and teams but several tweaks to the gameplay that the community have certainly been vocal about having added and which certainly help add to what is already a great game.
First off let’s start with the new teams with eight new races now available, bringing the total to an impressive 24 races as Goblins, Ogres, Halflings add to the fun alongside the Amazons who play similar to the humans making them a great alternative to newcomers wanting a balance team to learn with. We also get an original team in Kislev a circus troop complete with bears who replace Slann from the tabletop game while retaining their rules. There is also the Pro-Elves, Vampire and Underworld (Scaven and Goblin alliance) but these play similar to their counterparts already in the game outside of a few tweaks to how they play and cost, which will either see like a cheat or a welcome addition considering how much of a fan you were of their counterparts.
The star players also get a boost with over 50 unique players available to get an edge to those teams who can afford to hire them and having played the tabletop game, there is a real thrill in seeing these star players taking the pitch.
To add to the team spirit your cheerleader squad will now wear your team colours while the Bloodweiser Babes are joined by the Dwarf Drum Squad and Orc Cheerleaders which adds alittle variety between setups and while each race might not have its own dedicated cheerleaders you do get the choice of the three regardless of the race being played as.
This edition though plays like the ultimate toy chest as finally you can build essentially any team you want be it comprised solely of star players or built from races willing to form an alliance in the pursuit of glory and really enables you to field some interesting teams and while you might limited in multiplayer where you use these Frankenstein teams it’s still a fun option to have.
For the solo players the campaign mode is now joined by the eternal league which enables you to play an endless series of games with any team making it a great companion to the original campaign which was really just a disguised (yet still enjoyable) tutorial mode.
While the team options are certainly plentiful, it’s equally great to see Cyanide Studios making a lot of smaller changes such as finally adding the ability for timeouts in games which was much needed in the original game, especially with games lasting around two hours it’s nice to be able to break away should real life start encroaching on your game time.
Undoubtedly though this is a fantastic addition to the game which fans will appreciate knowing that the wait was worthwhile.