On April 9, 2026, U.S. publisher Fantasy Flight Games declared that it was discontinuing the Descent: Legends of the Dark game line. Here's an excerpt from that announcement:
Why is the game being discontinued?
Simply put, the game is too expensive to make. Between ever-increasing manufacturing costs, lengthy and pricey app development timelines, and global economic shifts making everything more expensive to produce, it became abundantly clear that continuing to make this game is just not feasible. This is far from the outcome we wanted—again, we all love this game and hoped to see it grow for years to come—but even if we were to sell every last copy, we would still ultimately be doing so at a loss. In a fiercely-competitive board game industry, that simply isn't sustainable, and because of circumstances outside of FFG's control, there are no adjustments we could make that could lower costs enough to continue printing the game.
Fantasy Flight Games launched in 1997 — nearly thirty years ago! — and Descent has been part of the FFG line-up for two-thirds of that time, with Kevin Wilson's Descent: Journeys in the Dark debuting in 2005, a second edition of the game appearing in 2012, and the revamped Descent: Legends of the Dark from Kara Centell-Dunk and Nathan I. Hajek hitting the market in 2021.
When Descent: Legends of the Dark was announced in October 2020, FFG wrote this about the game:
The story told across the Blood and Flame campaign is an epic story that rises to its own finale—but at the same time, it’s only the first act of your story. You can look for Act II and Act III to be coming in the future as their own expansions, each box packed full of new content and the next full-length Legends of the Dark campaign.
Descent Act II is better known as Descent: Legends of the Dark – The Betrayer's War, which was released in 2023, but in its April 9, 2026 announcement, FFG says:
Act III of Descent: Legends of the Dark is no longer in development. This is the part that saddens us the most. We could fill a novel with the number of discussions, proposals, and "what-ifs" that happened behind the curtain, all of them trying to find a way to deliver Act III—in any form—to the fans. Unfortunately, none of those methods—not even the digital-only ones—proved to be feasible, and so the only path left to us is to cancel the expansion outright.
It seems disingenuous for FFG to write "even if we were to sell every last copy, we would still ultimately be doing so at a loss". Just as costs can rise or fall, an item's retail price can similarly rise and fall — and it's not like the first two releases were cheap, with Descent: Legends of the Dark retailing for US$175 and The Betrayer's War retailing for US$160.
I think we can look instead to this line for the cause of this decision: "...because of circumstances outside of FFG's control..." As I detailed in an April 8, 2026 post about asmodee North America's May 2026 release calendar, outside of Atomic Mass Games, all of the asmodee studios are producing games that retail for at most US$40.
More generally, many game publishers are moving toward smaller games, and I imagine that's what is happening here. The Betrayer's War is out of print, and a reprint might be in the range of US$200, with Act III also retailing for that much or more...so maybe we should just move along to other projects, goes the thinking inside asmodee HQ. The company is launching at least two crowdfunding projects in 2026, with both 7 Wonders: Deluxe Series and Zombicide: Dead Man Tales being previewed on Gamefound, but the first two Descent titles were retail releases, so let's not drag Act III to a new market, hope the buyers show up, and upset retailers who promoted the first two releases. Better to just let it go...
Obviously I'm speculating here, but I'm tying together threads from different parts of the industry that have popped up in the past year.
