Eclipse: Second Dawn for the Galaxy

Eclipse: Second Dawn for the Galaxy may have quietly redrawn the line for what a deluxe reissue can be. Its bling is impressive in a particularly dangerous way: you sit in front of this lavish spread and start wondering whether you need it even if the original, its hard-to-find expansions and all the associated baggage already occupy a shelf at home. It can make an ordinary Tuesday after work feel briefly like a space opera.

At heart, it is still the familiar exercise in building a galactic position: uncovering the map, extending your empire, improving what it can do, and turning the space around you into an advantage. The Core plus Rise experience is notably improved; the whole thing runs more smoothly and sits a notch above the earlier version.

Naturally, a galaxy does not become yours merely because you looked at it first. Players meet in the territories everyone wants, where expansion and conflict give their choices some weight, and Rise joins the core game in a more complete package. It all spreads across the table with the confidence of a large game; less usefully, it does not erase the things that kept the original in the 7–8/10 range.

Once the novelty has gone and there is only the game left, Second Dawn does not persuade me that those older problems have been solved. We had a good time, certainly, but I did not leave with that small itch to get it back on the table soon. It is a beautifully tended edition of a good game, rather than the undeniable revelation its box suggests.