The recent demise of 2e X-Wing was on the cards, but a shame and the reasons for it are laid plain (nothing to sell, a tournament circuit fractured and dwindling), but it’s existence and the pain or excitement it caused was deemed necessary.
Necessary?
Second edition addressed a few things, mostly to do with tournament play;
The evolving game had left some ships behind, specifically the first ships you would think of. The reality was, the iconic names of Star Wars were mostly redundant*.
Point values and upgrade options were printed on the cards, meaning needed changes* had to be applied via existing means. These fixes had become habitual, standardised even, but the options available were limited,
The elephant in the room of multiple time lines was becoming troublesome. The Prequels were never addressed and the sequels kept throwing up new ideas and hurdles (see above). Armada doing a retrospective range only made this more obvious.
There were too many ideas (upgrades) and the core concepts of the game were changing. It is hard to un-make things once they are out there but equally, some options simply never made it to the table*.
The fixes were largely successful, if a little messy and it seems too late. The X-Wing towards the end of the 1e game was nimble, strong, tricky and well priced. The Kihraxz, it’s Scum equivalent, is a chameleon with options and even the Tie Advanced had real merit for pilots other than Vader.
To be honest, the simple clarity of 1e is the major draw for me, later game hi jinx accepted, I liked points on card and could live with either removing or modifying the bits that jarred. “Official” card reprints for the tournament circuit (like the Armada upgrade card box) would have sufficed for many and effectively “2e’d” the game.
Second edition did get a lot right.
Larger upgrade cards were nice for older eyes, no point or upgrade options printed on ship cards provided needed flexibility, an up to date and even design space for all ships, new upgrades like Force and Turret Gunner, mostly rationalised upgrades with fewer choices and some experimental mechanics, like Turret rotation, were settled.
Recently looking closely at 2e, I really like what they did with Droids and Ordnance, can live better with EPT’s and Mods, appreciate the logical choices made for some upgrades and reject a few overly wordy cards as I choose. It is a better game, but is it a better experience?
Dials got generally more exciting, “power” upgrades were dumped, but so were the “duds”, wording was tightened and the whole thing felt slicker, if a little weightier. There is more covered, so more going on. It seems sometimes like they evolved logically, other times like they “balanced it to death”.
Life is unbalanced and these unbalances make it fun. The rock-paper-scissors simplicity of 1e has been diluted, something that around here we deliberately reduce by removing the clutter.
What went wrong?
Timing sucked.
COVID put a dent in all things communal, even though it did boost board game sales. X-Wing had few solitaire options, so online play was the go, if that was your jam. If not, the flame slowly dwindled.
There were new ships to buy in the TFA and Prequel ranges, but many of the original ships were not reprinted. The Auzituck, Alpha Starwing (a ship I have never actually even seen), Star Viper, U-Wing and many more were supported in upgrade packs (rarely in the right numbers), but you needed to be part of the 1e to 2e migration upgrade dynamic or miss them, so no joy for new players.
Even now, it is sometimes possible to find some 1e clearance ships more easily than 2e packs and rare ones are costing as much as entire collections.
More K-Wings? Seems not. My second one was a Spanish language print with sourced cards and tokens. Picking up a third may cost me the same as buying into an entirely new game system.
The game was more popular than ever on the tournament circuit in later years, but casual and club players were shifting away to new games, or just away from X-Wing generally. An interesting point is Armada and Attack Wing have stayed mostly unchanged (1.5e shifts, not wholesale changes-with the exception f AW ship costs dropping) and have stayed relatively sound as a result.
The Ship and Upgrade cards with no printed point cost or upgrade bar are clean and flexible, but there was constant change, both of the costs and even the whole delivery system. The tournament circuit was constantly changing, the casual player resorted to pre-built “quick pick” cards or just gave up.
I wonder if many card based games would survive if they required a separate list of costs and conditions to play.
The feel is different.
Can’t explain this properly, but the feel of 1e still excites. 2e is like the pub band that has gone on to a more polished experience, but looses that special something along the way. Hard to fault the majority of decisions made, but no matter how much is good, something was lost.
For me they missed the golden opportunity to separate Pilots from ships.
This would have solved a few problems and added variety as well as adding that “what if” element to the game. AW has its Captains and even Wings of War added Aces in the late game. Luke flew an E-wing in later fiction, he could have flown a Y-Wing, A-Wing or even the Falcon, Han could have flown an X-Wing or YT2400. Why limit pilots to ships, then have them fly several other ships anyway (Hera, Vader) and what about Poe in a F/O Tie, which actually happened?
I guess it was death by a few deep-ish cuts.
Breaking with the old, then adoption of the new stifled by bad luck, resentment and confusion, some choices that split the field more clearly into the tournament and casual groups, then supporting only one of these properly, higher and limited entry costs, a feeling for new players of missing the “golden age”, then finally an older idea assailed by newer ones (Crisis Protocol etc).
People move on and nostalgia only satisfies a few, but if that is also gone with genuine change, then there is not much to hold on to for them.
For me a good game is a good game, so a reduced form of 1e is pitch perfect and a TFA period jaunt into 2e is developing.
*This is purely from a tournament perspective, casual or simulation-ist play largely ignores these points.