So with the cancellation of Star Wars, there appears to be an opening for another LCG. The question is, what setting will this LCG be in. Before I speculate, I want to look back on the history of the games first.
FFG's LCGs launched when they moved Call of Cthuhtu and A Game of Thrones from CCGs to the fixed LCG model in '08. This was followed up with Warhammer: Invasion in '09, bringing the number of games up to 3. In '11 Lord of the Rings launched as the first co-op LCG. Bringing the number to 3 Competitive, and 1 Co-op. In '12, FFG launched 2 games: Star Wars and Android: Netrunner. This brought the number of games up to 5 Competitive and 1 Co op. From this point on the number of LCGs was 6, or 5 inbetween games being canceled and released. Invasion was discontinued in '13, to be replaced by Warhammer 40K Conquest in '14. Rotation was implemented around '14 with Thrones being discontinued to be replaced by the Second Edition of Thrones, launched in '15. Call of Cthulhtu was cancelled in '16 to be replaced by Arkham Horror, bringing the number of LCG's to 4 Competitive and 2 Co-op. Finally Conquest was cancelled in '16, replaced by Legend of the Five Rings in '17.
That brings us to now with Star Wars being cancelled. Now the obvious next game would be a co-op version of Star Wars, which was it's original design before being retooled. But there is Star Wars destiny now, which may put a co-op game on the back-burner. It is there to fill the void. This would also bring the number of co-op games to 3, which seems plausible given the success Arkham Horror has experience, but I don't think this will happen for a couple of years, with another game coming first.
So which setting will take it's place? I think we can look to the recently released Genesys RPG rulebook. In it, they have different genre's, each with a different setting owned by FFG: Runebound, Sovereigns of Steam, Tannhauser, Android, and Twilight Imperium. These seem like the obvious place to grab a new property. Android already has a game, so that isn't happening. Tannhauser is a miniatures game that was discontinued in '12, with nothing in the setting since then. This makes it unlikely, besides not having as much appeal. Sovereigns of Steam is based on a single board game, which hasn't been too popular either, although so was Android. Android did have a game engine already build with Netrunner though. I don't think this one is likely right now considering it has almost nothing in terms of the world.
Which brings me to the two I find most likely: Runebound and Twilight Imperium. Runebound has been receiving a consistent push lately. They have had new editions of their board games, the Runewars Miniatures game last year, and they are the first setting to receive a sourcebook. They also have 4-6 clearly defined factions. On the other hand they are somewhat in the realm of generic fantasy, of which we already have LotR, AGOT, and L5r. Runebound is different from L5R and AGOT by being more High Fantasy, and would be different from LoTR by being competitive. But there is currently a gap in sci-fi for LCGs. They have Android for Cyberpunk, but nothing for Space Opera/Sci-Fi. This makes me think they might go for Twilight Imperium, which just got a 4th edition. They could possibly reuse parts of Conquest's game engine, while also updating it and making it new. This is my personal favorite for a new game.
What do you guys think will be next? And what do you think it will be like?