2047. A techno-feudal state has emerged. Surveillance is total. Data and the underlying networks that traffic it are the chosen mechanisms of control. A handful of megaconglomerates—governments, corporations, media syndicates, and radical fringe movements—vie for supremacy, competing to track and exploit every thought, interaction, and inference to consolidate and amplify their authority. Whoever dominates these assets owns attention, truth, and desire, and ultimately wields the most power.
You are hackers: fragmented actors driven by divergent philosophies—some seek chaos, others truth, profit, equality, or survival—all competing to bend data and systems to their will. Your targets are the sprawling factions that dominate the digital and physical landscape—the entrenched centers of control, culture, belief, and beyond—each a fortress of critical information and infrastructure. But this isn't just about stealing data for leverage. With each successful breach, you establish access points deep within faction systems—persistent backdoors that become yours to grow and manipulate. Every stealth incursion and clandestine connection moves you one step closer to completing your secret mission, but will you be the first to reach your goal?
Currency Data converts to volatile crypto that buys tools, upgrades your rig, and moves markets. Objective Data advances your hidden agenda, whispering of collapse, reform, or transcendence. Nodes establish territorial claims in the vast web of digital architecture. Every action raises Heat, putting more eyes on you and pushing you toward exposure. Overheat, and you go dark—forced to Cooldown while rivals surge ahead. In a world of competing agendas, you're also a target: opponents can hijack the data and shadow networks that you've risked it all to acquire. Form alliances, burn bridges, trade on the gray market, or hoard what you alone should own. In a world where every cataloged action strengthens the system that controls it, where feedback loops tighten, and needs are engineered before you feel them, the rush of a devastating hack is everything. So long as you don't get caught.
RECURSION places 2-6 players in a high-stakes race to infiltrate twelve powerful factions, establish territorial control through network infrastructure, and complete secret missions before rivals do the same. But completing your mission doesn't guarantee victory—you must accumulate the most Victory Points across multiple strategic dimensions.
—description from the designer
Economic, Negotiation, Political, Science Fiction, Spies / Secret Agents · Area Majority / Influence, Commodity Speculation, Dice Rolling, Events, Hand Management, Hidden Roles, Investment, Market, Network and Route Building, Push Your Luck, Race, Take That, Tech Trees / Tech Tracks, Trading, Turn Order: Auction, Variable Phase Order, Variable Player Powers, Variable Set-up
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