Talisman 5th Edition review - does a hit of nostalgia equal a smash hit?

 

2nd Edition - the Talisman I grew up with. 5th Edition - the Talisman my kids are growing up with.

Image by Avalon Hill, part of  Hasbro

[10 min read]

• How It Plays
• A Dash of Data
• Summing Up

Talisman 2nd Edition was an important part of my childhood many decades ago. So I was excited when Hasbro relaunched the classic board game franchise with a 5th Edition back in July 2024. Since then, my family and I have played over a dozen games at multiple player counts, including the cooperative expansion. If you're curious about whether it's for you, check out How It Plays.

But why Talisman and why now? In a world where board game demand has softened since the explosive growth enjoyed during Covid, production costs have risen due to inflation, and there is future uncertainty around tariffs, why did Hasbro bring back this venerable product? If you want to dig further into the rationale behind the relaunch, wonder if it hit the mark sales-wise and what might come next - check out A Dash of Data.

How It Plays

First, what is Talisman?

It's a long running fantasy-adventure board game series originally designed and produced by Games Workshop in 1983, but most recently licensed to Avalon Hill, who are owned by Hasbro. 

And who's it for?

2-6 players, ages 12 and up. Though I'd say the heroic fantasy theme and the low complexity of the game means it can be enjoyed by families with children much younger. 

What do you do in the game?

You play as a hero, with unique stats and abilities, competing with others to find a Talisman and use it to reach the Crown of Command at the centre of the board before they can. A fairly simple roll and move game with light roleplaying mechanics in a high fantasy setting, Talisman is famous for its wide range of expansions. These add on to the play area in the form of new maps that connect to the main board, with additional heroes and mechanics to add replayability.

Talisman Fourth Edition plus expansions added - those with large tables need only apply!
Image courtesy of Board Game Geek

Is it still true to the original?

Yes. Any concerns that Avalon Hill might deepen the mechanics and stray from the basic, chaotic fun that prior editions provided were allayed within a few turns. Given the mental fatigue of a full day's work, being able to roll dice, make limited choices, and still feel some sense of accomplishment was appreciated. After my period of experimentation with more modern and more complex games, Talisman's rules felt like a breath of fresh air. 

But what did they change?

A bunch of things. Talisman 5th Edition introduces gameplay changes to make it more streamlined, and less reliant on chance:

• Choosing to spend Fate to land on a specific space rather than spending frustrating turns hoping for the right number is a big improvement.
• Having more options to enter the middle region rewards players choosing characters that aren't built to beat the Sentinel (a strong opponent blocking the bridge).
• Being turned into a toad or dying has been made less punishing on progress.

All in all, even if the game is still heavily reliant on dice rolls and random card draws, these quality of life improvements lead to less frustration at the table.

So not a major rework, then?

Not really. But they did add the first official cooperative play mode for the franchise with the launch of an expansion only three months after the base game. Talisman Alliances: Fate Beckons includes: five missions with a loose story; some variation in win-states; new enemies that actually move around the board as roaming threats; and a 'doom counter' that increases the difficulty as time goes on.

We didn't find the missions too challenging - mostly completed first try - but we did enjoy strategising together to overcome that little bit of extra difficulty that is largely absent from the base game. After each mission is a nice reward of new cards, new heroes, and new miniatures to play with! 

Fate Beckons - five coop missions, roaming adversaries, and a doom counter added
Image by Avalon Hill, part of Hasbro

Anything they didn't fix?

A couple of things.

Size - Avalon Hill has done a great job at shrinking the box down to something I would consider a medium-sized package compared to other miniatures games. But when unpacking the folding cardboard play area, adding the character sheets, tokens, and the stacks of cards required to play, I could see this creating problems for players with smaller tables.

Length of game - In my experience board games that advertise a play time on their box usually max out at 90 - 120 minutes but often underestimate the total, especially for your first few games. For Talisman 5th Edition, Avalon Hill has opted to completely remove the average play time from the packaging, because even two players could still easily hit two hours, and that probably represents a barrier to attracting any new audience that Hasbro might want for this franchise.

The coop missions in the expansion tended to run a little bit quicker, due to the doom counter adding more urgency, and some win-states not needing the full journey to the centre of the board as in the traditional mode.

The enemies' strength, and the tension, ratchets up as the clock counts down
Image by Avalon Hill, part of Hasbro

Overall, how did people find it?

Players seem to dig the update, as shown by a higher average user rating on Board Game Geek of 7.5 vs Fourth Edition at 6.5, and a lower complexity score too (-20% vs 4E, at 2 out of 5). While this version has had less than one year to accumulate a fraction of the 16,000 reviews of it's predecessor, the early signs are positive.

Critics however, seem to be polarised. There are those who are obviously longtime fans and appreciate that the new edition is a streamlined, modernised revision of the game they remember (e.g. Board Game Quest). And there are others those without the rose-coloured glasses of nostalgia who (rightly) critique the game's simple mechanics and heavy reliance on chance that can lead to loss of progress (e.g. Meeple Mountain).

Talisman 5E is tracking well on popular board game user review forum, Board Game Geek
Image by Board Game Geek

And what do you think?

It's just what I hoped for! I get transported back to my childhood years and my family really enjoys playing it. Even if the game runs a bit long for our two young boys' concentration, we can just tweak the rules to make it easier or end earlier. 

Knowing that Hasbro and Avalon Hill could not stray too far from what the game has been for decades or risk alienating their most core audience, I think they have done a good job of balancing the gameplay changes to be more friendly to the player without completely remaking the game. Thumbs up!

A Dash of Data

Ok buckle up. Here's where we dig into the business side of this new edition launch. You'll see there really is only a dash of hard data available, so we have to make a bunch of inferences if we want to know if this has been a success for Hasbro.

So why'd they do it?

Lower risk of return. 

Hasbro, after strong revenue growth in the Covid years of 2020 and 2021, saw successive revenue declines of between 7% and 14% in 2022 to 2024 [Source: Hasbro financial statements], leading inevitably to streamlining their businesses back to the core and taking considerable cost cutting measures. 

In this environment, the decision to relaunch Talisman makes sense - board games are a core product for Hasbro, and the brand has a forty year legacy to draw from. This is reduces the investment needed in product development and marketing versus introducing new properties with a higher risk profile.

How's it been selling?

We don't know - there is no publicly available sales data to draw from. 

But looking at Hasbro's 2024 financial report, the Consumer Products segment - which includes physical board games - reported a 12% revenue decline, attributed to softer volume and exited brands. The only board games mentioned in the quarters after Talisman's release were Monopoly variants, showing just how niche a proposition Talisman is for Hasbro.

Will Talisman ever show up in toy giant Hasbro's little blue book?
Image by Hasbro

Ok, but there must be a way to find out, right?

Kind of. By trying to understand how what success might look like when Hasbro made the decision and looking at the their subsequent behaviour, we can guess whether sales have met expectations. And I think that Hasbro were influenced heavily by the earlier success of HeroQuest. 

So we need to look at another game?

Yes. A comparable one, a benchmark of sorts. In creative, hit-driven, industries such as games, the use of benchmark titles to help guide decisions about future products' success is common. And HeroQuest is a good one, since it is also a simple, fantasy, board game series that was relaunched in 2021 after decades without a new edition.

So how did HeroQuest do?

Very well. In 2020, Hasbro used their own crowdfunding platform to assess interest in a remake of the franchise, with over $1M raised in 24 hours [source: GameRant] and reportedly $3.7M in total. My estimates put that at over 30,000 individual backers, which is a hell of a start. 

That level of interest was enough for Avalon Hill to produce the core box set and two expansions to fulfill the campaign, and then ten more content packs sold at retail to date! This is all before creating a smaller, less expensive core box called HeroQuest First Light earlier in 2025. That's an incredibly prolific output of content in less than four years. And it implies sales met or exceeded Hasbro's expectations.

Just a sample of the post-launch content released at retail for HeroQuest
Image courtesy of Geek Dad

Got it. But what does this mean for Talisman?

My guess - Hasbro only had to look at how comparable the prior versions of HeroQuest and Talisman were in terms of age, owners, reviews and ratings to then extrapolate success from one to the other, especially given the likely similarity in target audiences. Check out the stats below:

A basic comparison between franchises may suggest correlation of results
Source: Board Game Geek and Reddit as at May 2025

This favourable comparison for Talisman was probably enough for Hasbro to skip crowdfunding and move straight into producing 5th Edition and its first expansion right off the bat. The difference in Reddit community size could be explained by the fact that HeroQuest's new edition has been out longer than Talisman's, the subsequent expansions driving engagement from the community - something Talisman can aim for.

Ok, but you haven't answered the sales question...

Since it is difficult to to know whether Talisman has been a success commercially for Hasbro, here is my hypothesis: once a new expansion is announced for Talisman, we can conclude the relaunch has been a sales success. 

When will we know?

It took almost twelve months after the retail release of the HeroQuest relaunch core set to get its first additional content into stores, and another six months for the first full expansion to release.

If Talisman follows the same formula, a new expansion should arrive 12-18 months after the 5th Edition launch last July, which means we should hear an announcement soon. There have been leaks reported from Dec 2024 of a new expansion called Nemesis, but no official release has confirmed it. If one is to launch in 2025, we might expect to hear something announced as early as UK Games Expo in May, or as late as Gen Con in August.

This fan of the franchise has his fingers crossed for news soon, but with the current economic uncertainty, it is possible that future development on this storied board game franchise may get swept up in Hasbro's streamlining of operations.

Summing Up

Hasbro saw the success from comparable title HeroQuest and, given the resemblance between games, expected similar results from Talisman, making it a lower risk new product launch. They delivered on appealing to core fans by keeping the spirit of the original while modernising the game, but aren't likely to attract a new audience given the high reliance on chance and loss of player progress, large time investment and table space required. And until we hear news of a new expansion, we cannot assume Talisman has hit their sales expections. The final verdict:

Nostalgia hit? Check.

If you're a fan of Talisman or you have kids who might like it - I think 5th Edition is a great purchase.  But if you're new to Talisman and like clever mechanics and deep strategies in your games - you should steer clear. 

Smash hit? Not yet.

If your decision to buy rests on whether the game is going to be supported like prior editions - I'd hold off until you hear word that there is a robust pipeline of content coming.

Watch this space,

Dashmeister

If you want answers to these questions now, do yourself a favour and choose Prophetess!
Image courtesy of Polygon