The Empire must fall. Our mission must succeed. By destroying their key bases, we will shatter Imperial strength and liberate our people. Yet spies have infiltrated our ranks, ready for sabotage. We must unmask them. In five nights we reshape destiny or die trying. We are the Resistance!

The Resistance is a party game of social deduction. It is designed for five to ten players, lasts about 30 minutes, and has no player elimination. The Resistance is inspired by Mafia/Werewolf, yet it is unique in its core mechanics which increase the resources for informed decisions, intensify player interaction, and eliminate player elimination.

Players are either Resistance Operatives or Imperial Spies. For three to five rounds, they must depend on each other to carry out missions against the Empire. At the same time, they must try to deduce the other players’ identities and gain their trust. Each round begins with discussion. When ready, the Leader entrusts sets of Plans to a certain number of players (possibly including himself/herself). Everyone votes on whether or not to approve the assignment. Once an assignment passes, the chosen players secretly decide to Support or Sabotage the mission. Based on the results, the mission succeeds (Resistance win) or fails (Empire win). When a team wins three missions, they have won the game.

What has changed in the 3rd edition?

The Resistance has a new look - we've upgraded almost all of the illustrations: new card art, new tableau art, new box art. The game has a cleaner look across the board and illustrations fit better to the new art that Jarek Nocon has done for us in the Resistance expansions, One Night Revolution and Coup games. These art changes are also being made to some of the character cards in the reprint of The Resistance: Hidden Agenda.

And we are replacing the "Plot Thickens" expansion with the "Inquisitor" expansion. The Plot Thickens was introduced in the development of the game as a way to better balance the win rates at larger counts and introduce variability from game to game. The downside was that this expansion was a significant step up in complexity from the base game. The Inquisitor was developed after the release of The Resistance, and introduces the same partial information that balances game play with significantly less complexity.

As The Resistance is getting more and more mainstream it made a lot of sense to include an expansion that met the changing needs of our customers.