Board game enthusiasts have it good nowadays, as digital versions of classics like Risk, Catan, Carcassonne or Sagrada are easy to find, either on consoles, PC or mobile. But now, we go back to what was probably most people’s first proper board game – the iconic Monopoly, once again brought to digital life by Ubisoft. This is XboxEra’s review of Monopoly, simply called that, tested on Xbox Series X!
It’s a Ubisoft Monopoly, call the FTC
The french publisher are certainly not particularly shy with using the Monopoly IP on consoles. While nothing’s on the level of the behemoth that is Monopoly GO on mobile, they’ve found pretty good success in the last handful of years, with both a standard-ish recreation of the board game in Monopoly Plus, the digital version of the fast-paced card game Monopoly Deal, and even the party game of sorts, Monopoly Madness. Seems like enough time passed, and it’s time to go back to the board (heh), recreating the original magic of the timeless board game. In comes the game simply named Monopoly, which for clarity’s sake we’ll be calling Monopoly (2024) for the rest of the review.
How do you even add something worthwile to such an untouchable formula, anyway? This ain’t no Monopoly Madness and, at its core, it’s pure and simple Monopoly really. There’s a handful new ideas for the presentation, unlocks and a couple alternative rulesets, but if you’re searching for a digital recreation of the iconic board game’s standard rules, this one gets it down to the fine details. The starting pot of 1500₩, the mandatory auctions in case someone doesn’t have enough cash to buy a property, how scoring a double three times in a row sends you to jail – it’s Monopoly, I don’t think I really need to explain how it works.
I own this town
Perhaps the most noticeable new features of Monopoly (2024), compared to Monopoly Plus and other recreations of the board game, are all in the presentation. This time, the board game itself is played out on the porch, on a small table outside of a cute little house. Since the game is zoomed in all the way to the little elements of the board game, it almost feels like being shrunk down, looking around and seeing a giant world as if we were inside the game Grounded. There’s even a day/night cycle and changing weather!
Most interestingly though, unless players actively choose to use the classic “flat” board, there’s even a live city in the middle of it all. This was already a thing in Monopoly Plus, but this time it is far more lush and detailed, with the players being able to hop into a clunky but functional free look mode, as they can witness the ins and outs of this lovely town. Skyscrapers, farms, gyms, piers, bridges, crossroads. Vehicles, pedestrians roam around in a credible fashion, cheering can be heard outside of the stadium, banging EDM emanates from the club. It’s all quite cartoony and a bit static, as there’s little to interact with, but the amount of attention to detail is quite surprising.
It’s a matter of style
Even besides the digital sightseeing, there’s something to do in this city: finding new tokens. As of launch, the game features 10 hidden tokens all across the board, and while I’ll avoid spoiling any one’s aspect or location, I’ll just say that pretty much all the shapes we find make a lot of sense for their location, being quite exactly where I’d expect that item to be in context. There’s already various selectable tokens from the start, too, and others can be unlocked via Ubisoft Connect – including some funky crossovers with Assassin’s Creed and Rabbids, for instance. As a sidenote about Ubisoft Connect: the game absolutely showers the player with XP to level up your account there. After mere 2 matches played, I already gained like 80 coins – quite a contrast with most Ubisoft games where such a task would require dozens of hours of gameplay.
Playing the game, doing tasks, unlocking achievements and so forth does unlock further visual customization options. This comes in the form of… materials. After unlocking one, players can turn both their tokens and their set of dices into said surfaces. Do you want a wooden token? Dices made out of molten lava? Both made out shiny minerals? All that is possible, though obviously this doesn’t really impact anything in terms of gameplay. One interesting aspect of Monopoly (2024) is how everything is… physical. Players get to shake, aim and throw their dices, with the values not coming out from a random number generator but based on their actual bounces and landing. Even the tokens themselves can be moved manually on the board, which even allows us to hit another player as we go by – a funny sight that doesn’t impact gameplay however. After losing money, the player can even flip the whole table, as then every player gets to watch pieces of the city, tokens and everything fly around, once again calculated by the game’s physics. But don’t worry, the actual board is reset immediately after, so it’s a visual flair rather than something that impacts gameplay.
I came here to play Monopoly and chew bubblegum
But what about the actual Monopoly experience, how does this game allow us to play all that? In terms of features, it’s quite complete: local play from 1 to 6 players, single controller mode or separate devices, AIs can be added freely, and there’s even an online mode – something I couldn’t test too much due to playing the game before its official release, however. Do know that it presents crossplay between all the various platforms: the last two generations of Xbox and PlayStation consoles, PC, Switch, even Amazon Luna players can play together. In terms of local play and unlocks, the main player has to have unlocked tokens and dices, which then can be used from anybody.
For those bored by the classic Monopoly rulesets, there’s various options available, still. Multiple house rules can be activated, not unlike in Monopoly Plus, with some brand new modes like Speed Die as well – in which players not only start with extra cash, but also get to throw an extra dice that allows them to either select exactly where to land or go to two different locations per turn. It’s a cool little variant that drastically decreases the length of the match. There’s even alternative win conditions, among the customizeable rules, such as giving the crown to whoever builds the first full set of houses within a colour or reaches a certain amount of cash. There’s a good amount of ways to play Monopoly in here, which is the most important thing.
Was there a need for another Monopoly, though?
If you don’t own a virtual rendition of Monopoly yet, there is nothing really wrong with Monopoly (2024). Plenty of options for both local and online play, with all sorts of customizable rulesets, tokens and even dices. New rule settings, revamped visuals and more make this a game with more than enough variety and depth to justify a purchase. On the other hand, unless you are craving for that hopefully lively online community that will form over this new game, there isn’t a whole lot of new things worth shelling out the 30 USD/EUR launch price for, with not that many notable features that were missing in the already excellent Monopoly Plus – a game that constantly goes on sale for a few bucks nowadays. In short, Monopoly (2024) is hardly an essential buy for those who already own other Monopoly videogames. In a vacuum, however, it does most everything right to be a solid digital recreation of this iconic, friendship-breaking board game.
Monopoly (2024)
Played on
Xbox Series X
PROS
- Can't go wrong with Monopoly
- Great presentation
- Plenty of alternate rulesets
- Complete with local and online multiplayer and bots as well
CONS
- Not a huge improvement over Monopoly Plus
- The living board's town novelty wears off thin
- A bit expensive at launch
