In 1981, director John Carpenter released his action spectacle Escape from New York, starring Kurt Russell as Snake Plissken. The film became a cult classic, with quotable lines and memorable characters. Escape from New York the board game—part of a trend of games based on older movies—now sits proudly next to other period faves on my shelf like Planet of the Apes, Aliens, The Warriors, and Big Trouble in Little China.
The game was designed by Kevin Wilson and published by Pendragon and Studio Canal. It plays up to 4 and takes 120 minutes. The Bands of New York 5-player expansion came with this copy, allowing one player to play as New York.
Gameplay Overview:
You play as one of the Heroes racing through the streets of New York City, now converted into a prison, in search of the president of the United States. The president is being held by the Duke of New York, who also controls other bosses and prisoners. Not only do you have to find the president, but you will also need to collect his briefcase and a diagram of the bridges before your team can escape to safety.
Select one of the movie’s heroes and outfit them with some starter items and a deck of eight basic action cards to begin. A random map of New York is created so the location of the president, key points of interest, the Duke, other bosses, and necessary items change every game.
A Hero phase is followed by the New York phase, and the play rotates among the Heroes and the New York bot until time runs out or victory is achieved.
As parts of the city are revealed, you can pick up extra items, trigger events, or find critical information for the escape. Similarly, as gameplay progresses, you can level up to earn special action cards to add to your deck.
Noise is a key concept. Most actions create Noise, which is recorded on the New York board. Noise drives the New York phase. The New York bot attacks the players, who must discard action cards as damage.
Once your band of Heroes has collected the necessary items, everyone must make their way to the correct bridge to escape with the president and win. The game can also end by running out the timer deck.
Game Experience
The character tokens are the iconic actors from the film. The Cabbie role is equipped with Borgnine’s taxicab, which can be used to transport other characters or ram through roadblocks. The characters have asymmetric abilities, which feel balanced and are pretty easy to optimize.
The randomized setup means the game progresses differently each time you play. Critical items and gang bosses may be revealed very quickly or very slowly, which affects the pace of the game. The longer the game continues, the more prisoners appear, making it more treacherous to traverse the city. There’s tension there: you have to explore to find the President, but every play creates more danger. As a result, you are frequently weighing your exploration against how far you will be from an escape.
Your action deck is small, but you can improve it by earning advanced cards. However, the somewhat unusual mechanic that requires you to take damage by discarding cards means you are often frustrated with your plans.
The New York action deck is limited, making its available actions feel repetitive. The Bands of New York expansion allows for five players and permits one player to actively play as New York, which didn’t change the game as much as I’d expected, possibly because the narrow range of actions in New York’s action deck didn’t change much.
A gang boss entering play unexpectedly, random events, and the timer deck countdown creates frenetic gameplay. It’s not so much the power of New York as the opposition but the unpredictable events and growing ranks of prisoners around every corner that make the task feel herculean.
The timer deck represents the time Snake was given to grab the president and get out of the city. Numerous events cause the timer deck to advance. Mid-game, the running out of the clock starts to create anxiety to finish the job. To make it worse, one of the final three cards of the timer deck is a random, sudden game-ender.
The cooperative nature allows for a lot of action to divert or eliminate the enemy. And with 2-3 other players, you can uncover more tiles and points of interest rapidly across the board, rather than plodding across the city to explore it tile by tile. More players allow you to spread out your search, although it makes it harder to call on a teammate for defense against the multiplying prisoners.
The Lone Victory is an interesting feature: if your personal objective permits, you can essentially jump ship without your team! More often than not, when I played, someone (including myself) calculated the odds of the whole team escaping and chose a Lone Victory. It didn’t feel like an abbreviated game, however, but just one way for it to play out.
Final Thoughts
Escape from New York is thematic, with a dark, unexplored city surrounding Central Park, and prisoners and bosses making unexpected appearances. Occasional but devastating hits by New York make the rescue and escape a tough challenge even with a full team of Heroes. The sequence of a single turn is complex: you’ll need to find that player aid if you don’t want to use the rulebook constantly.
Final Score: 3.5 Stars – Thematic recreation of the rescue thriller Escape from New York, with some clever mechanics and cooperative play that has the potential for a rogue twist by a single player.
Hits:
• Random setup makes each play fresh
• Unique damage system where you lose action cards instead of taking hit points
• Upgrading the Hero action deck offers more varied game play
Misses:
• New York’s limited action deck made its plays feel repetitive
• As a result of the random setup, game pace, and length can vary
