Twilight: 2000 is a tabletop RPG (Role Playing Game) set in the aftermath of a fictional War World III starting in 1995 as a conventional war, rapidly growing in scale and eventually escalating to nuclear war. The players start their campaign as a group of survivors whose division has just been decimated in a failed offensive in Poland, and are now on their own.

The first edition of Twilight: 2000 was published in 1984 by GDW (Game Designers’ Workshop) and pictured a (for the time) future war between the United States along with part of the NATO countries on one side, and the Soviet Union along with most of the Warsaw Pact on the other. Interestingly, in this edition the war started between the Soviet Union and China, and only later came to involve other countries. GDW produced and released more than 40 supplements for their game, greatly expanding the available material, with settings spanning from eastern/central Europe to the Mediterranean, to North America, the Middle East and Russia.

The second edition was released in 1990 and saw a revision in the history leading to the war, taking into account real-world events of the late ‘80s.

A third edition was released in 2008, with the beginning of the war pushed forward to 2013 and a revisited timeline leading to the conflict. Little development followed, as GDW went out of business in 2010.

Finally, Free League Publishing acquired the license to publish a new edition of Twilight 2000, and after a successful Kickstarter, in 2021 launched what is now the 4^th edition of Twilight: 2000. In this edition, the Soviet Union survived the fall of the Berlin Wall and war erupted between it and NATO countries, maintaining the original year 2000 for the start of the campaign, after the conflict has gone nuclear.

Players can choose between the classic Polish setting, the newly introduced Swedish setting, or adapt the game to start anywhere they want in the world. The game can be played with a group of players portraying characters in the game-world and another player acting as a Referee creating the world around the actions and decisions of the group. Another option is to play solo: with a single player acting both as character(s) and Referee. The Referee’s Manual contains an appendix dedicated to this kind of gameplay.

Officially launched as Twilight: 2000 – Roleplaying in the World War III That Never Was, the game uses Free League’s Year Zero Engine (YZE) as the foundation of its core rules. It has so far received three official expansions: Urban Operations (2022), The Black Madonna (2024) and Hostile Waters (2024).

The solo campaign I’m playing uses the 4^th edition of Twilight: 2000 by Free League.

The core boxed set is available for purchase on Free League’s website, along with all the expansions and extras (such as extra dice set, referee’s screen and weapons cards).

Twilight: 2000 4^th Edition and all Free League’s products con be found here.

Twilight: 2000 core boxed set and its content

4th edition (2021) by Free League