We want to open this 4th edition of Twilight 2000 review with a big thanks you to the Free League for making the core set of the game. And a big thank to Tomas Härenstam e Chris Lites, the authors. Giving new life to a game that is approaching forty years of history is certainly an ambitious project. We give you our opinion. Should this convince you, you can order the core set on the Official store of Free League. It is available at a price of 498 crowns, just over 49 euros. The Player’s Manual alone costs 198 crowns, about 19.50 euros; part of the accessories of the core set can also be purchased outside the box.

A Bit of History
Twilight 2000 was born in 1984 to allow you to play the scenario of the third world war. And to play it in a raw and direct way. It is important to note that the game was born in the middle of the Cold War, and that its ucronia has been updated several times over the years.
Free League presents the latest update, supported by a highly customized version of its well-established Year Zero Engine. This is the first time that Twilight 2000 has changed its set of rules so radically. Perhaps a shock to the most loyal fans, but the result is a perfectly successful gaming experience.

Review of the Core Set of Twilight 2000
First of all, let’s spend a few words on the box that Free League has made available to us. In addition to the Player’s Manual we find the Referee’s Manual, for a total of 264 pages. The manuals have a flexible cover, but being very slim you do not miss the hardcover. In the box we also find two maps large, for travel, and other twenty smaller, tactical ones. Four of these are for specific locations, the others are modular.
We will also have more than a hundred die-cut tokens, to make the most of the combat maps, 52 cards for encounters and 10 for the initiative. To top it all off, five character sheets ready-to-filland fifteen dice. Twilight 2000 can be played with the common polyhedral dice on the market, but these have dedicated symbolism for successes and failures.

A Gamist RPG?
Already from the content of the core set, it is clear that Twilight 2000 is a very strategy-oriented RPG (that also uses a game board). Personally it’s not a feature that I usually get excited about, but the goal is to reproduce a war scenario. Tactics and resource management are a must to recreate the right sensations, and Twilight 2000 does it very well.
The engine of everything, as mentioned before, is the Year Zero Engine. This is the game system that Free League has made famous with Mutant Year Zero and with other games we have already told you about (Vaesen, Alien). The Year Zero Engine places an emphasis on character choices, managing their resources and how much they are willing to risk to get what they want.

Review of the Mechanics of Twilight 2000
Reduced to its core, the gameplay is very simple. Two dice are rolled, one for the characteristic and one for the skill used: the higher the competence in that field, the higher the die’s class will be. Results of six confer success; higher values can give more than one. To succeed in the action, a success is enough, the others improve the outcome. In addition, the players can choose to “force” the roll, by re-rolling the dice that did not yield successes. Greater chance of success, but in this case with the risk of running into complications very risky.
This is the basic mechanics, a more “challenging” adaptation of the Year Zero Engine. As mentioned, Twilight 2000 is a very tactical game. So a wide range of options are added to this particularly fast and intuitive system. These focus on three aspects in particular: combat, resource management and exploration. After all, it is the third world war.

Character Creation
Customizing your character is particularly simple. Twilight 2000 includes four attributes (Strength, Agility, Intelligence, Empathy) and twelve skills, all obviously suited to a war and survival context.
Once these scores have been assigned, you choose from nine different archetypes, which guarantee you add specializations, with which you get additional bonuses in specific fields. The archetypes also give hints for the moral code, the big dream and the appearance character. Role suggestions that also impact on mechanics. The choice of nationality is also fundamental, as we will see shortly.
An alternative method of character generation allows instead to reconstruct the path for his entire experience. Certainly less quick and intuitive than the archetype, but much richer and more satisfying.

Review of the Referee Resources of Twilight 2000
This information can be found in the Player’s Manual, along with other interesting rules such as the ability to stay cool during a shootout, a value that fluctuates depending on the direction the game is taking.
In the Referee’s Manual, on the other hand, it is possible to find more in-depth information on the setting and on the management of the game by the master (or rather the referee, precisely). In particular, the manual provides tools to manage travel and exploration, shelters and firefights. For these the hexagonal grille, characteristic of the Year Zero Engine, is highly recommended. Not to mention some areas ready to use, actual pre-made sandbox adventures, or the vast amount of information on vehicles and weapons, two other essential elements for a game of the genre.
Very useful and detailed material; at first you may feel that you are getting lost a bit, in fact. But this is information written in a synthetic way, although the aesthetics of the two manuals are very nice to be legible while always giving the impression of being taken from a military report. At the bottom, the illustrations are really well-kept, especially when they portray historic (or Ukronic) vehicles. A little practice will make everything extremely smooth.

Role Playing in World War III
“Good luck. You are on your own now.”
A necessary premise. The Referee’s Manual contains background information that is intended for the referee’s eyes only. Our reviews are always spoiler free, but this time we will limit ourselves to giving you the most essential information. Which are still more than enough to be influenced by Twilight 2000.
The basic assumption is simple: history went as we know until the end of the Cold War, with the fall of the Berlin Wall. From then on there was no respite. Instead of entering a phase of détente and then of dissolution, the Soviet Union suffered a coup d’état by the reactionaries. The tension was raised more and more, leading to a conflict with the United States that took place mainly on European soil.
The focus of the game is Poland and Sweden, but World War III spared no one. Nuclear weapons have even been dropped overseas, and even countries that have not been directly affected by the conflict have plunged into a new barbarism due to the destruction of lines of communication and trade. The manual presents a hint of Germany, France, Great Britain and the United States, but as mentioned, it is Sweden and Poland that are carefully detailed, region by region. In any case, it does not matter if the character is a soldier, a civilian, an invader or otherwise: he is now alone in hostile territory.

Conclusions of the Review of Twilight 2000
As anticipated, the writer is not a fan of RPGs that are extremely tactical or game-based. But going beyond personal taste, Twilight 2000 impresses with the care it takes to recreate this type of experience. The game system has been carefully adapted but without betraying its nature, every single element of the core set has a specific function to perform. It takes very little to get lost in the map, looking for the best strategy to get around the enemy. Or to cover it with lead.
It is certainly necessary a dose of courage (or maybe madness) to think of reworking a historical title like this. Fortunately for us, the spark of madness is not lacking in the Free League, that madness that helps it to give us yet another jewel. A fascinating game, which requires very little preparation but in return guarantees enormous satisfaction. And you, are you ready to face the third world war that never happened?
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