Marvel D.A.G.G.E.R., a cooperative board game in the same vein as Arkham Horror or Pandemic, was released by Fantasy Flight Games in 2023, with very little fanfare. There wasn't much marketing for it that I can recall -- the first time I remember seeing it was in a local store, and while the game looked interesting, I balked at the $90 price tag, which (if the prevailing discussion on BoardGameGeek upon its release is any indication) is what many potential buyers did. I eventually picked up a used copy for a much more reasonable price.
The game itself is quite engaging. It does indeed play a lot like Pandemic or Arkham Horror/Eldritch Horror -- players take on the roles of Marvel superheroes attempting to stop one of four powerful supervillains from destroying important locations such as New York City, Wakanda, and Atlantis. Each villain has its own particular way of spreading their minions across the board, giving the heroes foes to fight and tasks to perform in a race against time.
Over the course of the game, the players will have three villain-specific missions to solve. These usually involve moving to a specific location and passing a dice-rolling test, or doing a particular action a set number of times. Each hero also has their own side mission, which will reward them with an in-game bonus if they complete it, and the game will deal out more general side missions such as defeating less powerful supervillains. Meanwhile, at the end of each turn a threat tracker counts down based on how many locations have been destroyed, and how many villains are in play -- this tracker acts as a timer, giving the players a limited number of turns to complete each mission.
Once all the main missions have finished (pass or fail), the heroes enter into a final showdown with the villain, which plays out differently depending on who you're fighting.
There are 20 different heroes to chose from...sort of. The game leans into the legacy aspect of many of Marvel's characters, where a new personality will take over a well-known identity like Captain America or Spider-Man. Each hero card is double-sided, featuring a different version of the hero (or a similar hero) on each side: Sam Wilson or Steve Rogers, Iron Man or War Machine, Hulk or She-Hulk, and so on. You choose which one to start with, but if you character is incapacitated during the game (which happens often), you flip the card over as the other version of the character steps in to take over.
In addition to heroic identities, each player begins with one of six aspect cards. These are descriptors such as Protection, Vigilance, or Justice that put a different spin on the game's four basic actions. It adds a lot of interesting variety to the game and should substantially increase replayability, as players will be able to try out all the different hero/aspect combinations.
Thematically it's very similar to the Marvel Champions card game, carrying over the hero/aspect idea as well as the structure of heroes acting cooperatively to defeat a game-controlled villain. But Marvel Champions tends to emphasize the individual players acting based on the strengths and weaknesses of their deck, while Marvel D.A.G.G.E.R. requires a much more Pandemic-like, teamwork driven approach.
It doesn't quite have Arkham Horror or Eldritch Horror's depth of story, but that's not really a problem. Most players will be familiar with the back stories of the Marvel heroes and villains in the game, and if they're not, the game includes a handy booklet detailing each character's biography. One of my biggest problems with Eldritch Horror was the breakneck pace of the game -- I never felt like I had time to just explore the world and its storylines. With Marvel D.A.G.G.E.R. I already know the characters, so I'm happy to focus on being in the moment and defeating the villain. The sense of urgency is fun rather than stressful.
So what went wrong with Marvel D.A.G.G.E.R.? While it is still in print and available from the publisher, the consensus seems to be that it is a failed product and not likely to receive any further support in the form of expansions or promotion. Well, as mentioned before, the first problem is the price. Board games have gotten steadily more expensive over the years since, say, Arkham Horror second edition or the original Pandemic came out. Some of that is just general inflation, and a lot of it is being blamed on post-pandemic supply chain issues, specifically drastic increases in printing and especially shipping costs.
The game has a generous amount of content, with hundreds of full-color cards and counters, but it does feature cardboard standees in place of the plastic miniatures that have become fairly standard issue for this type of game. Although the truth is likely a lot more complicated, there is a perception that cardboard is less expensive than plastic, and therefore a game featuring standees instead of miniatures should cost less. In reality, the vast bulk of a game's cost is (or at least, should be) down to its design and development.
I think it's possible that a lot of the game-buying public has grown accustomed to Kickstarter games that tend to be lavish productions but also labors of love from small companies or individual designers -- the asking price of these games covers their production costs but not necessarily the hourly labor that went into creating the game's ideas and mechanisms. Put another way, when people are assessing the value of a game, they're often only looking at the relative amounts of cardboard and plastic. In any case, Marvel D.A.G.G.E.R.'s asking price was just more than the market would bear.
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| Cloak & Dagger by Rick Leonardi. © Marvel. |
The other problem with Marvel D.A.G.G.E.R. is the title -- it's terrible. It doesn't give you any idea of what the game is about. While the game's logo explains that D.A.G.G.E.R. stands for "Defense Alliance for Global and Galactic Emergency Response," it seems like they could have come up with something less clinical and more exciting. Besides, Marvel's Dagger isn't even in the game...
Rating: 4 (out of 5) If you've ever thought that Pandemic or Arkham Horror would be more fun with Marvel superheroes, this game is probably a good bet for you, and a lot of online retailers have it for a much more reasonable $50 or less.
- Marvel D.A.G.G.E.R. official website
- Marvel D.A.G.G.E.R. on BoardGameGeek