One of the things that has been on my list of things to get done for a long time has been reviewing each of the Arkham Horror campaigns in full. With the older campaigns going out of print I feel that giving an honest review of each one at this point may be helpful as due to the secondary market prices being inflated at this point buying one without having a good idea of what it contains is not a sensible proposition.

As a brief aside, I do understand the decision to send all the older sets out for retirement, however I do think that the complete removal of everything was not the best way to go about it. I'm of the opinion that some method of collecting the older campaigns should be looked at. One such option is to offer the cards in a print to order fashion the same way that Plaid Hat have chosen for Ashes: Reborn. The other route, and the one which I think is the most interesting, would be to switch to a “Vault” system, in this all of the older campaigns from Chapter 1 are not totally retired, instead each year one campaign is taken out of the vault and reprinted, adding the older stuff to the current environment and helping not only address the issue of collecting the game for newer players, but also adding additional content to the current environment.

As an example, in 2027, this very campaign could be “un-vaulted”, with The Dunwich Legacy Campaign and Investigator campaigns reprinted and perhaps even the Return to Box to see if there is now demand for it (or the Return To cards could be included in the reprint of The Dunwich Legacy). I like this because even though I own all the Chapter 1 content, I want others to have the chance to experience these older campaigns and cards while also bulking out the Current environment a bit more through a rotating schedule of campaigns from Dunwich to the Drowned City.

With that written, it's time to get onto The Dunwich Legacy itself.

Set after the events of The Dunwich Horror (H.P. Lovecraft. 1928). During that story one Wilbur Whateley is indoctrinated by his grandfather and becomes a sorcerer, at the same time some strange unseen creature takes up residence in the Whateley farm. Its presence is noticed by the disappearances of cattle, something that becomes even more present once Grandfather Whateley dies and Ms. Lavinia Whateley (Wilbur's mother) disappears.

Wilbur travels to the Miskatonic University in Arkham, because he needs a copy of the Necronomicon to replace the damaged copy that the Whateley family had. Dr. Henry Armitage, the elderly librarian suspects that Wilbur does not have good intentions with the book. So Henry refuses to hand over the copy and warns other librarys in the area to do the same. This results in Wilbur breaking into the library where a guard dog attacks and kills him. Dr. Armitage, fellow professors Warren Rice and Francis Morgan arrive in time to see Wilbur's body melt away into nothing.

Without Wilbur to attend to it, the mysterious creature at the Whateley farmhouse destroys the property and rampages through Dunwich. It is completely invisible to human eyes, but the path of destruction and the tracks it leaves through the Dunwich town cannot be ignored. This rampage of terror, with the Dunwich Horror assailing the town, results in the deaths of several people. Armitage, Morgan and Rice arrive after a few days have passed. Watched by a surviving member of the Whateley family, one Curtis Whateley via telescope, the trio ascend a local landmark known as Sentinel Hill and he loses his senses at the sight of the Horror being forced to become visible by a mystical powder. The ritual reaches its peak and the Dunwich Horror calls out in desperation to its father, Yog-Sothoth. It is for naught though, as the ritual completed by Armitage, Morgan and Rice has utterly destroyed the Horror. This death did not happen before a final revelation though, the Horror was in fact Wilbur Whateley's twin brother and their parents were indeed Yog-Sothoth and Lavinia Whateley.

The Dunwich Horror in the Arkham Files universe takes place as a part of the Arkham Horror board game, providing an additional board for players to explore along with the titular Horror itself. I have a complete collection of that game including the 2006 Dunwich Horror expansion and as such I've always appreciated how The Dunwich Legacy links to both that and the original story by Lovecraft.

I've played the Dunwich Legacy with one, two and three investigators, my most recent run, completed before this review was written had a true solo Daisy Walker take her books and Miskatonic University support staff on this expedition. It felt very thematic to have a “passing of the torch” situation with Daisy taking over the lead with mentoring from Dr. Armitage.

Our story set up for the Dunwich Legacy takes place a few months after The Dunwich Horror has concluded, we are summoned by Dr. Armitage who has a very familiar feeling that something is going on and he wants us to find his Dunwich Expedition colleagues Professor Rice and Dr. Morgan. While I won't be critiquing the story too much, this is one of the moments I think is a bit weak. Dr. Armitage is right that there is something going on, but I find the conceit that he's doing all this based on a feeling and the failure of Professor Rice to turn up for supper rather than Dr. Armitage having concerns because people keeping an eye on the surviving Whateleys/Dunwich reported unusual activity or disappearances. I don't know why this bugs me, it's not a big deal in the overall scope of things, but for some reason it does.

For the rest of this review I'm going to go through each of the scenarios in order and provide my thoughts on the mechanics, story, difficulty and overall quality of the scenario. Then at the end I'll wrap this up with a bit of a look at the encounter deck cards and then final thoughts.

The very first decision that we are given in The Dunwich Legacy is for me one of the best starts in the early campaigns because it gives players a choice on which scenario they are going to approach first and has consequences of that ordering matter. We can go to the Miskatonic University to look for Professor Rice in “Extra Curricular Activity” or Dr. Morgan in “The House Always Wins”, this is something I always like to see in a campaign. We're making a choice and there will be consequences that we see almost immediately. It's such a great hook for new players to be presented with this straight off; what you decide to do, what you achieve, will matter down the line.

Extra Curricular Activity

Professor Warren Rice has just been missing for a few hours at this point, but because of Dr. Armitage's concern the Investigators agree to go look for him. This takes place in the iconic Miskatonic University, a location that makes a reappearance in Chapter 2's beginning scenario. The encounter deck in this scenario includes some really nasty sets, with Sorcery, Whippoorwills and Agents of Yog-Sothoth in particular being very memorable.

The University Locations themselves will have some variations depending on if you head here first or after visiting the Clover Club in The House Always Wins. No matter what though the beats of this scenario do not change, we're trying to gain access to the staff areas of the campus, so we need to find a way to get in. This turns out to involve finding one of my favourite bit part characters in the entire of Arkham Horror, the University Janitor “Jazz” Mulligan.

With his assistance the players are able to choose from a few different options to end the scenario. It is possible during this scenario to close things out by finding Professor Rice, discovering you're too late and he has been kidnapped, defeating a weird experiment rampaging across the campus, failing to defeat said experiment as it noshes its way through the students in the dormitories or just giving up and leaving. Rescuing Professor Rice before he is kidnapped will allow one Investigator to add him to their deck and for a Clue based Investigator (I'll use the traditional Cluever from now on for them) he's a solid ally though given how good Seeker Allies are he's better for a non-Seeker Flex player.

This gaining of story specific allies is something that happens a lot throughout the campaign, you can accumulate a lot of optional allies and the permanent Charisma which allows an extra ally gains more value. (Mental note, next time I play this I should take Charlie Kane as my Investigator and use as many Dunwich allies as possible)

I think Extra Curricular Activities is an excellent scenario and one that I always enjoy playing, it somehow manages to feel large like a University should without being too much to navigate, the numerous ways that the scenario can play out are really great and yet I always feel like I have a purpose and goal in mind while moving through the events.

The House Always Wins

Our alternative scenario 1 / 2 takes place in the Clover Club Casino, this is a criminal enterprise fronting as La Bella Luna and run by the O'Bannion gang. I've always felt that this scenario feels less organised and clear than Extra Curricular by design. You turn up a bit lost about what to do and have to “engage in activities” to progress the plot, gaining clues by gambling, drinking or similar. It does manage to capture the feel of the “following leads and gathering information” roleplaying session in that front. It also feels like a really tight and close location, especially when things start to get out of hand, either because the O'Bannions get ruffled or some extra-dimensional guests turn up and begin messing with the guests and security.

One of the things I very much like about this scenario is the nature of the O'Bannions, they're not allies or enemies by default and instead they can be either. Though it is more likely that the O'Bannions will be upset with the Investigators because that happens in all but one of the resolutions. It's another neat branching point, because the O'Bannions will turn up again during the story and how they behave depends on this scenario in specific.

Dr. Morgan is the Fighter version of Professor Rice and he's doing a lot of the same stuff, so you can build your fighter with the idea of him being your primary ally, but he's not stronger than many other options.

There is an Interlude here after these two scenarios, and again we have consequences, this time for failure at the Clover Club Casino. If the investigators didn't escape the collapsing building in time then they ended up out of action for several hours, long enough for Armitage to be kidnapped. The alternative situation here has him present and join the expedition as a player's ally if desired. Armitage isn't the best ally one can have, but he's tough and can turn any drawn card (apart from weaknesses) into an instant Emergency Cache (3 resources). One of the things that I think a more modern iteration of The Dunwich Legacy may have done here is have allies like Dr. Armitage not take up ally slots, there's so many of them and even with Charisma they end up being cards to commit for symbols more than allies you play and rely on.

The Miskatonic Museum

The Investigators either urged on by Dr. Armitage's notes about the Necronomicon; or by the man in person, head to The Miskatonic Museum, where Armitage placed the Necronomicon in the hands of the museum curator Harold Walsted. The Investigators arrive at the Museum late in the evening and it is closed. Leading to another small branching path of decisions, one can break in or try and gain the attention of the night security guard. If you get the guard Adam Lynch's attention he becomes an ally to escort and protect for the duration of the scenario. If you break in Adam's already had an unfortunate accident and the aforementioned Harold becomes your ally to protect.

This is one of the weaker scenarios in the campaign; the goal here is to find and check all of the exhibits until you locate the Necronomicon, and one funny little thing here is that it's possible to have four different Necronomicons in the campaign from this point forwards. Daisy has the “John Dee” translation, Chapter Two's Dexter Drake has the “Drake Translation”, there is the Seeker card aka the “Petrus de Dacia Translation” and the goal of this scenario the “Olaus Wormius Translation”. This doesn't really matter too much, but it was something that amused me as a possible campaign goal – complete The Dunwich Legacy with all four Necronomicons in play.

The searching for the Necronomicon isn't the part of this scenario that falls flat, that in itself is interesting enough, it uses a system reminiscent of Warhammer Quest's (1995) dungeon construction in that the location you're seeking is shuffled into the back end of the deck. You know you'll have to go through and investigate at least a few of the other exhibits before you get there, but you don't know exactly how many. We also have a meaningful decision at the end of the scenario, where we must decide to either bring the Necronomicon along with us, which does put it at risk of being stolen or burn it, ensuring that it cannot be used by anyone.

The main issue is the enemies, as seen in the Elder Sign dice/board game the Miskatoni

c Museum can be a really engaging place filled with weird things. Instead we have one singular foe for the entire scenario; The Hunting Horror. This is a creature that comes from the Plateau of Leng in the Arkham Files Universe, the home of Ithaqua and appears in the novels “The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath” (Lovecraft 1927) and “The Lurker at the Threshold” (Derleth based on Lovecraft's notes 1945). The Lurker is the one that's expressly written to be a sequel to “The Dunwich Horror” and that is probably the reason that the Hunting Horror is included here, but even then it feels like a poor fit.

Mechanics are the main crux of the issue though, with just one Enemy who turns up somewhat randomly as a recurring threat the evenness of the scenario is very much compromised. Dedicated Fighters are often caught with not much to do for stretches and considering how threatening and lively the Museum is depicted in Elder Sign this is a shame. There was plenty of opportunity for exhibits to spawn thematic enemies from cursed items, sarcophagi or other exhumed remains and all of that is squandered.

It's a brave attempt at creating a scenario with a persistent “nemesis stalker” in the vein of many other games (especially video games like Resident Evil), but ultimately it falls flat and needed more work before being released. Not even the “Return to...” updates do anything to address this and ultimately I find that the scenario “Echoes of the Past” from Path to Carcosa is a much better realisation of the searching a place for something you need experience.

The Essex County Express

Fortunately the lull in action that the Museum represents is followed up by one of the most engaging Arkham designs of all time and for me is one of the high points of this campaign. The Essex County Express makes incredible use of the card location format by creating a steam train from its elements. Players start at the back of the train when it is brought to a screeching halt and are in a race against time (and space) to make it to the front and get the train restarted.

One can move left or right through this scenario, with the main focus on being moving to the right as that is towards the Engine Car location. Each Train Car is identical when unrevealed, but when turned over the car inside can present a whole range of thematic mechanics; not only that, but the encounter deck can throw out goopy, sticking masses that slow down progress or hapless passengers that will cause sanity damage if they are not protected.

To add even further pressure to this situation, a ticking clock in the form of a vortex turns up after a few rounds and it begins to suck up the back of the train one card at a time. Investigators pulled up into that experience the classic “lost across space and time” which can happen to players in Arkham Horror. It's nicely represented by the displaced investigator gaining a weakness that leaves the mystery of the experience intact while also representing the trauma of it well.

There is something for every single Investigator to do here and the ticking clock of the scenario is so delightful, with Cluevers digging hard through the clue based obstacles while the Fighters handle the monsters blocking the way. Even when you reach the Engine Car itself the situation there can be very different with 4 possible options (5 with the addition of “Return to...”). It's a delightful scramble and also can make for an interesting standalone experience; we've even played this one with an “infinite train” where reaching an Engine Car and completing its tasks puts the investigators in a new loop of Train Cars while the “Drawn In” Agenda card repeats over and over. It's like Depths of Yoth in that it gives a 'how far can you go?' experience to really push against. How many trains can you complete before you've exhausted all your resources?

The Essex County Express is inventive, fun and engaging in all the right ways and has stood the test of time as one of the strong thematic scenarios.

Blood on the Altar

We've finally reached Dunwich itself after the worlds most exciting steam train ride since Horror on the Orient Express. Fortunately for everyone, this is Dunwich, Essex County, and not Dunwich, Suffolk which got flooded even earlier than Innsmouth or Arkham. It's a bit of a rundown place that feels more like a village than the town it is described as in most Arkham Files content.

One of the interesting elements of set up is how one location each time is removed from the selection, this combines with the connections of the other locations to create different awkward routes to navigate through each replay. It's a rather fascinating use of the game's location connection system that showcases just the tip of what can be done with this modern spin on “dungeon” layouts.

The scenario itself is a race against time with each advancement of the Agenda resulting in another potential ally being sacrificed. It is even possible for Allies in the player deck to be taken by the “Kidnapped” encounter card, which if it hit someone without many Allies can even take class or signature Allies and threaten their existence. It's rare that it happens, but someone having a vital Ally that cost Experience to gain can really ramp up the stakes.

Another branching part of this scenario is that if things at the Clover Club turned out to generate enmity from the O'Bannions then they will be present here as additional enemies, something that the “Return to...” box ramps up even further by having additional tougher enemies, one of whom starts already on the board ready to hunt.

I find the end of this scenario to be the weakest part, you end up discovering a monstrous, mutated Silas Bishop chained up in the basement and you're either tasked with either killing the beast or investigating the situation while holding it back. Silas can end up being slain, banished or “restored” with an additional stakes in this scenario that can also occur as if the bearer of the Necronomicon is defeated then the book itself will be stolen while they're unconscious.

The Second Interlude

This interlude is where each character from the Dunwich Legacy has some impact if they survived. Not only do we have Armitage, Rice and Morgan, but also the characters of Zebulon Whateley and Earl Sawyer make a reappearance from the original book. This helps establish not only some additional support for the Investigators via rewards and additional potential allies, but it also doesn't paint the Whateleys as the villains of this piece. That could have been an easy way for The Dunwich Legacy to go in, just continue with the surviving family members and oops they're all bad. Zebulon Whateley is clear and direct in his opposition to the actions of that resulted in Silas Bishop's transformation and the potential sacrifice of himself and others.

Undimensioned and Unseen

I do not think it is a particularly unusual or controversial opinion for me to consider that U&U is the one of the two weakest scenarios in this campaign. The core concept itself is fine, there's a bunch of invisible Brood of Yog-Sothoths that have been brought into the Dunwich Environs and it is up to the Investigators to locate, expose and destroy them. However, the stumbling point in this scenario is that the Brood can only be harmed by the Esoteric Formula, a scenario specific asset that fights the Brood with willpower. This means that anyone who doesn't have a decent willpower is going to struggle here. To the scenario's credit there are mechanics that can give additional bonuses to the check, but these are limited in number and failures are incredibly costly as a result.

The result creates a scenario where it's hard to feel like it was decided all the way back when players picked Investigators. If you have mystics, or investigators with good natural Willpower then this scenario is going to be a lot smoother than if not. I did take down all of the Broods in my Daisy run, but it required a lot of stalling and setting up and even then I wouldn't have managed it if the Auto-Fail token turned up more than once.

A better version of this scenario with more experienced, modern design would have four different iterations of the Esoteric Formula, one for each skill type. So you could select the one which worked for you, while still having some friction if two Investigators had the same best skill.

Its unfortunate, and while the scenario does offer the ability for Investigators to Resign if they've run out of steam, that can end up not feeling satisfying, especially because each Brood represents 1 Experience and this is a campaign that's notorious for how stingy it is with Exp rewards already.

Where Doom Awaits

This scenario is so much more exciting if you are familiar with the original story because it involves Sentinel Hill, which is the place that Armitage, Rice and Morgan went during the climax of the original tale. It is so thematic and narratively great that this is the penultimate site and the last Earthly setting this campaign's scenarios have.

The game experience itself seeks to translate the dizzying experience of being lost in the wilderness (with an additional paranormal element of extra-dimensional path bending) and create that feeling of racing against time as the corridor stretches out in front of you. It is a loopy, backtracking experience that serves as a taster for what is to come and I think it is an excellent expression of thematic mechanics.

However, this isn't the best scenario in the campaign, in fact it's another weak offering when you look at it from a gameplay perspective. There's a lot of backtracking (as mentioned) and the scenario seems to be determined to disrespect the time of the players.

It's also a lot more linear than it first appears, with both the first and second location's “areas” functioning in a similar fashion. So it manages to overstay its welcome, something which is further compounded by this scenario potentially being the end of the campaign. This is something that will crop up again in future campaigns, but it can feel especially bad here because very brood you failed to take down in U&U adds a doom to the starting Agenda. Punishing players for a decision that hid information from players at the start of the campaign.

Lost in Time and Space

The final scenario in The Dunwich Legacy makes the struggle of the previous two disappear, leaving just a faint bad memory. Lost in Time and Space is one of the all time greats, from theme, to mechanics all the way to the writing itself – which manages to give me goosebumps on occasion. It's all just such a blast as the Investigators find themselves stuck in a chaotic environment of rifts and fragments of unreality. I haven't written much about the artwork across this review, a lot of the time it is good to great and it is almost always serviceable. Lost in Time and Space is filled with hit after hit, you really feel like you're not just in some weird other dimension story land. At times it reminds you of the sheer, empty, lonely, uncaring, hostile nature of the vast majority of the universe.

As you struggle through this, trying to grab clues from unstable, fleeting, alien places, you're also beset upon by not just other dimensional beings but also Yog-Sothoth (and Seth Bishop, again if you have the return to...) Who is represented by a massive stalking enemy that turns up part way through the scenario (and the Return to... mixes this up by having Yog be present from the start, but lurking in a place where Investigators do not want to get randomly flung to).

The map itself feels fragmented, disjointed, difficult to navigate and the way that Investigators have to spend actions to try and draw new locations from the Encounter deck acts like a mirror to how searching for “Jazz” back in Extracurricular Activity felt. For me this was like coming full circle in some ways.

This scenario doesn't end normally if the Agenda gets to the end of its progression, instead Yog-Sothoth gets to flex its dimensional capabilities and attacks the Investigators directly over and over. Meaning this can only end in the defeat of the Investigators, the defeat of Yog-Sothoth or the Investigators pushing through and finding a way home. How the Investigators lose also has impact on the entire of reality, so there is room for different levels of defeat and victory here.

We also have an Epilogue, which provides a coda dependent on a decision the Investigators made back in Dunwich. Here we can either see Curtis Whateley (remember him) make the mistake of starting down the same road his doomed family members took, or perhaps instead we get to see the first appearance of Ms. Gené Beauregarad, a future Ally who I really want to see turned into an Investigator in Chapter Two.

The Dunwich Encounter Cards

I wanted to write a little separately about the stand out (good or bad) encounter sets in this boxed set. One of the (understandable) shames that happen in these campaign sets is how difficult it is to bring back good sets from a campaign without reprinting them directly into new campaigns. Having a current campaign rely on cards from a previous one isn't something that can easily be done, so sometimes great little designs get locked into small areas that can only be reached by replay, stand-alone scenarios released on Fantasy Flight Games' site and custom works that remix older content (something we don't have enough of in the Custom Content portion of Arkham for my tastes).

Sorcery is for me a clear flop, there is a theme throughout The Dunwich Legacy of deck milling, many things ask players to flip cards from their deck into the discard pile and Sorcery is one of the punishment setups and payoffs for this. Visions of Futures Past hammers low Willpower Investigators with rapid mill while Beyond the Veil delivers a ridiculous slam of 10 damage at the point where an investigator's deck is empty. There's even three copies of Beyond the Veil to really ensure that this happens.

Now on one hand, I get what this design is trying to do, but the unevenness of Encounter deck draws means that this card can hit Investigators at times where they have no chance to do anything much. Most scenarios that this is present in also have a release valve of “Resign” printed on a location, but that can be really unfortunate if it hits the wrong player at the wrong time. It is a revelation effect, so you can stop it with Ward of Protection (Mystic) for example, but it's not great to feel forced into that kind of direction. Instead personally I think this would have worked best if the Beyond the Veils started each scenario in the encounter discard pile and got shuffled in as a part of some Agenda advancement. Giving the players at least some space to move before they get put on a clock. Poor Winnifred Habbermock, Dunwich really is too much for your high speed antics without back up from a friendly mystic.

For an example of a punishing Encounter set that I really engage with look no further than Whippoorwills. These annoying bunch of absolute little birds are harassment incarnate. They turn up, hang around out of range with aloof and reduce all your skills until you leave the area, in which case they promptly follow you and continue their signature song “I know a song that will get on your nerves.” You're forced to either tolerate the stat losses or spend actions dealing with them by engaging with them and then disposing of them permanently by giving them lots and lots of bird seed and your social security number to make them go away. I love to hate them so much. It's no wonder they made it to Chapter 2 as a core enemy, fantastic design.

There are some encounters that are fine enough, but feel a bit oddly out of place. Bishop's Thralls for example turn up in Extracurricular Activity and I've always felt they're turning up too early. Tipping the game's hand and somewhat impacting the reveal of the rampaging a bit. The marvellous Midnight Masks scenario from Chapter One's tutorial campaign “Night of the Zealot” does a better job of hiding the weird in the mundane and even The House Always Wins does a better job, its Conglomeration of Spheres from the Hideous Abominations encounter set have a better introduction and feel like the otherworldly intruding upon the normal. I'm not sure why it is that the Thralls fail for me when the even weirder Conglomeration succeeds. It may be in the way they are deployed, used with purpose rather than stuffed in as random enemies.

An encounter set I wish that was used more is the Beast Thralls, this six card set has two different weirdly mutated and altered abominations that vaguely look like a vulture and a wolf. The one I am most intrigued by is the fuzzy scorpion shown on the Altered Beast card. I don't think I've seen it have a card itself, perhaps it is repurposed art from older games. Regardless, these cards feel underutilised as they only turn up in Undimensioned and Unseen and Where Doom Awaits. Both scenarios with a lot of pressure from the scenario itself. I would have liked them to turn up earlier, perhaps around Dunwich itself.

Finally we have the allies themselves, as I wrote above it is a shame that they are not better integrated into the game's limitations. We have a whole host of them, but even running extra slots with Miskatonic Archaeology Funding (as Rice, Armitage and Morgan all have that tag) doesn't help them stand out. Likewise Naomi from the Return to, as awesome as she is, doesn't really get to shine because she's turning up incredibly late. If she helped with Willpower and turned up during Undimensioned & Unseen it would have been such a boon, but it is still fun to try and complete the achievements involving her. I'm not really sure where she stands lore wise now that Arkham has finally progressed forwards in time with Chapter Two, but I would love to see her moved up beyond the status of temporary ally/enemy beyond her brief appearance in the closing story of Chapter One.

Final Thoughts

Dunwich has the unenviable position of being the very first full length campaign designed for Arkham Horror, the game was very much still in its infancy, not yet grown up from its parents (Arkham Horror 2nd Edition Board game and Warhammer Quest via the Adventure Card Game). So some teething troubles are understandable, big swings are taken in some of these scenarios and I appreciate the attempt even when they don't land well. However, I'm less forgiving with the additions from the Return to... series as there was opportunity to address the issues and they were not really taken, but it is hard to evaluate how much time the team had to design the box given that Dunwich came out in 2017 and the Return to box turned up in 2018.

One of the really interesting things here is that The Path to Carcosa also came out in 2017 and has the same designers (Nate French and MJ Newman) but it is so markedly more competent and cohesive an experience. Path to Carcosa not only manages to hit higher highs than the Dunwich Legacy, but it is also a more elevated experience both when you consider mechanics and narrative. I will cover that campaign next when I finish replaying through it.

If there was more of the branching time based choices you make between the first two scenarios, if the Miskatonic Museum was brought more to life and both U&U and Where Doom Awaits were given another pass I think Dunwich has such great highs across the other scenarios (especially the finale which is one of the best) that it would really sing. Most of these changes also wouldn't require heavy lifting to get into shape either as they don't miss by large margins. This I think is another argument for the “un-vaulting” suggestion I made at the beginning of this review, a Revised Dunwich Legacy in 2027, ten years after its original release, could modernize the campaign, bring the Return to content into the main box and tighten the entire thing up really well.

As it stands, the campaign does finish on a high and that counts for a lot even if the two scenarios before it are rough and awkward experiences. Dunwich makes a good first and last impression for sure.