Western Legends – Red Dead Redemption on the Table?

About six weeks ago, I attended Canada Plays 2025 hosted by Asmodee Canada. At the event, I had the pleasure of connecting with AJ from Kolossal Games and while this specific game we are reviewing today wasn’t on the table for me to see, AJ opened up the Kolossal Games catalogue to me and I’m so thankful he did. Western Legends is a pretty old game at this point, but still one worth looking into. If you’ve been missing this game over the past half decade or so – yes, it is that old – now’s the time to see if your favourite local game store has a copy!

There is a lot going on in Western Legends so I’m not about to walk through every aspect of the game. On a turn, players get to do a few actions that will allow them to accomplish a number of things. Players can move, play poker, mine nuggets, battle bandits, run from the sheriff, and so much more. The best way to describe this game, and fitting as we are also a video game review company, is that this is Red Dead Redemption, but on a table.

Sandbox games are really tough to get right. You can add too much to the experience, watering everything down, and making something that is unfortunately just sub-par. Or you can do too little, and players don’t get that sense of exploration, or that the choices they make matter. And then there is Western Legends, the perfect, and my personal favourite, sandbox board game.

Points matter, as with most games, but how you earn those points in Western Legends is really up to you. Want to walk on the side of the law and work with the Marshal? You can do that. Want to move cattle on the side for some extra coin? You can do that too. And if you decide that working with the Marshall isn’t lucrative enough for you, you can swap at any point and start living on the wrong side of the law. Nothing here feels permanent, and that’s the best possible thing a sandbox game can do. Choice upon choice, that’s the name of the game.

There is so much here that makes each game feel unique, and that’s a really strong reason why this will stick around in my collection. Which character you choose off the start will influence what you do. What other players are doing might influence what you do. How lucky or unlucky you are – this is the wild west after all – will influence what you do. If there is one thing I can guarantee, it’s that you must expect the unexpected, and a player is NEVER out of it in this game, as long as they can pivot strategies on the fly.

Let me paint you an in-game scenario to highlight how this game can work in a given situation. Player A (Marshal Track) moves into a space with Player B (Wanted Track). Player A now has a few different options available to them. They can duel the other player for victory points, arrest the wanted player and move up on the Marshal Track, causing the other player to lose their Wanted Points and nuggets, or they can rob the other player. It might sound a bit rules heavy, but learning all those intricate rules is what makes this game so special. This needs a complex set of narratives, action opportunities, and more. That all comes with rules and more rules, but this is a situation where the effort is worth the payout.

All of this comes with a caveat. I generally enjoy games with high levels of luck if they are quick. For me, a luck-drive game needs to be 30 minutes or less to be enjoyable. Western Legends has a decent amount of luck, influenced by poker hands, random card draws, getting “picked on”, dice rolls, and more. For those who want to plan their entire game, and hone a specific strategy, this is probably a game you want to run far away from – this isn’t that game.

Still, I’m willing to break my 30 minute rule because the experience here, win or lose, is just so much damn fun. Whether I won or lost, it was fun being a cowboy in the wild west. Whether I buy items at the general store to upgrade my character and provide me with more abilities, or rustling cattle from one ranch to another, or taking out bandits, there is something for everyone in Western Legends.

This is the BEST sandbox game I’ve played in a long time, and I’m slightly embarrassed to say it took me way too long to even get this to the table. I could have been playing this game for the past decade, and I haven’t been. Don’t make the same mistake as me – if you want to have a really fun evening with friends, get some drinks and snacks, and settle in for an evening of western shenanigans in Western Legends!