The good news is that it’s a quality experience on both table and screen.

In fact, Legends of the Dark has the deepest app integration of almost any board game I’ve played. If you’re already convinced that pixels and paper shouldn’t mix, this won’t be the game to convince you otherwise. (Journeys was eventually granted an optional companion app, Road to Legend, that introduced an AI opponent, but Legends’ hybrid approach is baked in as absolutely mandatory.) In addition to its well-stocked box of plastic and cardboard toys, you’ll need a free companion app to play, replacing the human DM-like overlord of Descents past. Let’s address the pixelated elephant in the room, and the biggest reason why Legends of the Dark isn’t Journeys in the Dark: Third Edition. Luckily, they’re broad shoulders, encased in a dense cardboard cube roughly the size of a small footstool that costs a take-a-seat-for-a-moment $175/£175.

The successor-not-sequel to Fantasy Flight Games’ beloved dungeon-crawler Descent: Journeys in the Dark, Legends of the Dark has nearly a decade’s worth of expectation and hype riding on its shoulders. In every sense of the word, Descent: Legends of the Dark is the biggest board game release of the summer.