There’s always that one game on the shelf that you think about constantly but rarely play. Maybe it’s too big, too long, too complex. Maybe it requires the perfect group of players. Maybe it’s just one of those games you know you need to plan for, so it sits waiting, rent-free in your brain, while other games get shuffled to the table instead.
The Odd One Out
For us, our reasoning is a little different. We play board games as a way to connect, to make the hobby a shared ritual. So solo games don’t really stand a chance. They feel like a contradiction to what board gaming means for us. And yet, Legacy of Yu has been haunting us ever since the first time we played it. A game we’re not playing, but constantly thinking about.
Legacy of Yu is a solo-only, fully resettable campaign where you step into the sandals of Yu the Great, hero of the Xia Dynasty, tasked with diverting the devastating floods of the Yellow River while fending off barbarian raids.
It’s a pressure cooker of a puzzle: you’ll recruit townsfolk, gather resources, build farms and outposts, and dredge canals while enemies multiply and the waters rise.
Winning once is hard enough, but the campaign only ends when you’ve racked up seven total victories before seven defeats. It’s tense, punishing, exhilarating, and utterly addictive.
Rules That Stick, Even When The Box Stays Shut
What’s beautiful about Legacy of Yu is that it’s not overwhelming to learn. Your choices are intuitive, the iconography is clean, and everything you need is smartly tucked into one of the best inserts we’ve seen. Set-up is quick for a game of this depth. Even after months away, we know we could crack it open, slot the pieces into place, and be right back in the middle of Yu’s desperate struggle without missing a beat. That alone makes the game feel more approachable, even if the campaign itself looms large in the back of our minds.
Sweating Every Move
When we did sit down with it, we were hooked. It’s the kind of game that leaves you sweating, calculating, agonizing over each choice as the barbarians creep closer, the flood pushes forward, and your resources dwindle to scraps. One of our wins came with literally nothing left to give—no cards, no workers, no resources, floodwaters a single step away from disaster. It was one of the tightest, most exhausting, most triumphant wins we’ve ever had in any board game, period. And that’s after just a few plays.
The campaign evolves in clever ways through story cards, keeping each game fresh, and the push-pull between short-term survival and long-term progress creates this constant knot of tension.
It’s crunchy, it’s narrative, it’s gorgeously produced (minus the shells…). It’s also exactly the kind of game we tell ourselves we “don’t play,” because it’s solo-only. And yet… here we are, still talking about it months later, still itching to bring it back to the table.
Living Rent-Free In Our Heads
The truth is, Legacy of Yu is one of those games that doesn’t just live on your shelf; it lives in your head. And while our own mental block has kept us from finishing the campaign, we know it’s only a matter of time. Because Garphill Games rarely misses, and this is a gem worth the hours, the effort, and the energy. It’s a game that waits patiently, daring you to return, and when you do, it rewards you with some of the most tightly wound, edge-of-your-seat gameplay out there.
One day soon, we’ll give Yu the attention he deserves. Until then, he’ll keep flooding our thoughts.
Check out Legacy of Yu on Board Game Geek for more information.
A copy of this game was generously provided by Garphill Games for content creation.
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