Pandemic Legacy Season 1 Board Game (Blue) - Epic Year-Long Battle Against Deadly Diseases! Cooperative Strategy Game for Family Game Night, Ages 13+, 2-4 Players, 1 Hr Playtime, Made by Z-Man Games

Why it's worth it

Pandemic Legacy: Season 1 is cooperative Pandemic played across a year of in-game months, where you put stickers on the board, write on cards, and tear some of them up. Two to four players, about an hour a session, and the changes stick forever.

A legacy game is a strange thing to unwrap. Sealed compartments hide components your recipient can't look at yet. Cards get destroyed. Characters get named and scarred. By the end, their copy of the board doesn't match anyone else's, and that's the whole point — this is less a game you own than a story you went through with specific people.

The commitment is exactly what makes it a good gift. A campaign runs 12 sessions if the group wins every month, and up to 24 if they don't, at roughly an hour each. That's a season of standing plans with someone. For a couple or a tight pair of friends, this gives them a reason to sit down together every week or two.

From our review of 6 gifts for board game lovers

What we like

• +A legacy game is a strange thing to unwrap
• +The commitment is exactly what makes it a good gift
• +It's far easier to get into than the big campaign boxes
• +This game held the top spot on BoardGameGeek for more than two years and is widely credited with turning legacy into a genre

What to know

• –It's a one-way trip. Once the stickers are down and the cards are torn, the campaign can't be reset or resold, and finishing it…
• –It needs the same players throughout