Raiders of the North Sea studio releasing solo game inspired by Chinese history

The studio behind Raiders of the North Sea - Garphill Games - is set to release an upcoming board game based on ancient Chinese history.

Legacy of Yu is a solo board game set during the Xia Dynasty of ancient China. According to a description posted by the official Garphill Games Facebook account, Legacy of Yu follows the story of a son of an ancient Chinese official who was tasked with ending a series of floods along the banks of the Yellow River. Gun, who was chosen by the reigning emperor, was unable to control the rivers after nine years of attempting to build dams. Learning from his father’s mistakes, Yu is given the responsibility to solve the issue of an impending flood through the Yellow River, as well as an incoming attack from tribes not affiliated with the emperor.

In Legacy of Yu, the player must build a series of canals in order to prepare for future floods, alongside defending the local villages against neighbouring tribes. Taking place over an entire campaign, each session of the game is affected by the outcome of the one played before it, with the Legacy of Yu balancing in response to a player’s performance.

At the start of each game, the story and gameplay mechanics will be altered depending on the choices made by the player in the previous session. Throughout the course of the game, new elements will be added, will the player needing to adapt to the additions and any fresh challenges. The campaign ends once the player has either successfully won seven games or lost seven games, with the epilogue outlining how the story of Yu the Great ends.

Legacy of Yu was created by Shem Phillips, the designer behind Raiders of the North Sea, as well as several other titles in both the North Sea trilogy and in its follow-up series, the West Kingdom trilogy, including Architects of the West Kingdom and Paladins of the West Kingdom.

Besides Legacy of Yu and Raiders of the North Sea, Garphill Games is known for publishing the entire North Sea and West Kingdom trilogies - with a third trilogy on the way, starting with Wayfarers of South Tigris - alongside Raiders of Scythia, another historically inspired board game designed by Shem Phillips.

Garphill Games has not confirmed whether the studio hired a cultural consultant to work on Legacy of Yu. Dicebreaker has since reached out to Garphill Games for comment on this matter.

Legacy of Yu is yet to receive a release date or retail price, with the game’s entry on BoardGameGeek listing it as coming sometime this year.