Tron: Legacy

Stern, 2011 — shot-by-shot rules and strategy guide.

Open Tron: Legacy in the Pinball Genie app →

Tron: Legacy is a feature-based game dressed up as a combo machine. The real goal is simple — light every insert on the progress ladder running up the middle of the playfield — but the table is fast enough, and generous enough with stacking, that you'll trip several of those features by accident before you've consciously aimed at any of them. Learning Tron is mostly about noticing what you already started.

Starting the ball

A soft plunge bounces off Flynn's divider straight into the scoop for the easiest skill shot, worth 500K and climbing. Two harder options exist if the ball misses that bounce: a shot to the left ramp off the right flipper if it rolls down to the right side, or — hold the left flipper button in before you plunge — a full orbit up to the upper left flipper for a shot at the right ramp. Both of the harder options pay a little less than the scoop, but both also light a Light Cycle insert on top, which the easy option doesn't.

Once the ball is live, keep one thing in mind above everything else: the End of Line combo. Land any of the six major shots — both orbits, both ramps, both inner loops — and their arrows flash for a moment, inviting you to one-time the ball into the scoop. Do it, and you collect a value that starts at 500K and never resets on its own, climbing with every combo you build even between collections. The game does nothing to announce this — no callout, no light show, nothing on the display tells you it just happened. It is nonetheless the single most valuable thing you can do on this table, more often than not worth more than whatever mode or multiball happens to be running at the time. The only way to lose it is to drain before you cash it in.

The minor features

Scattered around the rest of the playfield are five smaller systems that mostly just happen to you during a normal game. The T-R-O-N targets strobe between three scoring boosts — Double Scoring, Super Bumpers, Super Spinners — and rolling the Zen lane first turns your next hit on any of them into an instant start, no full bank clear required. Banking a few Zen rolls before you cash one in lets a single follow-up shot chain all three back to back.

Light all three C-L-U lanes across the inlanes and the scoop readies Terminate Clu, a 25-second run across four marked shots — left orbit, left inner loop, right orbit, and the scoop itself. The four Z-U-S-E standups spell out a switch-frenzy the moment you complete them, and rolling the Zen lane also starts Find Flynn, a roaming arrow that wanders the six major shots until you catch it — worth grabbing early since it's one of the cheapest inserts to light. Follow Gem is the odd one out: three shots to the stubborn right inner loop start it, and it only gets more valuable the longer you keep the ball moving there, helped along by either spinner adding time to the clock.

Three multiballs, three different shapes

Light Cycle is the quickest to reach — light four of six inserts and the scoop starts it — and it rewards a specific chain: a left ramp jackpot flashes the Quorra insert at the left inner loop for a super, and following that with the right ramp scores a fixed double super on top. Quorra Multiball asks for five shots at the left inner loop instead, then pays unlimited jackpots there with a real Super Jackpot waiting at Gem, and the Recognizer bank can add two more balls if you need the extra time.

Disc Multiball is the flagship, and it takes longer to reach than the other two combined — clear the Recognizer bank, feed the spinning disc seven times, then work through ten jackpots and three double jackpots across two stages before a Super Jackpot that dwarfs anything else on the table, especially with Double Scoring running the whole way through.

The finale

Get every ladder insert at least flashing and the scoop opens Sea of Simulation, a single untimed ball that pays out a lump sum for everything you've already solidly completed and hands you one more shot at whatever's still missing. Get all nine inserts fully solid — whether through Sea of Simulation or the hard way — and the scoop instead opens The Portal, a four-ball multiball with twenty-one jackpots spread across the whole table and a Super Jackpot waiting at the end of all of them. Owners of the LE cabinet have one more trick available: spelling D-A-F-T-P-U-N-K on the left ramp, twice, for a hidden extra ball and a bonus multiball that doesn't touch the ladder at all — a nice reward for chasing that one ramp shot as hard as the rest of the table wants you to anyway.

Goals in Tron: Legacy

Every goal below is tracked step-by-step, with shot paths drawn on the playfield map, inside the app.

• Arcade Skill Shot skillshot · Easy

  A soft plunge bounces off Flynn's divider and drops straight into the scoop for 500K, climbing 50K every time you collect it.

  Reward: 500K climbing by 50K

• Two More Ways To Start progression · Medium

  The scoop skill shot is the easy choice, but two harder options are worth chasing when you're comfortable with the table.

  Reward: 250K-300K, plus a Light Cycle insert either way

• Mystery Award mode · Easy

  Lit at the start of every ball, and cheap to relight afterward — one clean shot to the right orbit is all it takes.

  Reward: Points, Recognizer or Quorra progress, Clu or Gem progress, or a lit feature

• End Of Line Combo combo · Medium

  The single most valuable thing on the table, and the game never tells you so. Land any of the six major shots, then one-time it into the scoop before the ball settles.

  Reward: 500K minimum, climbing with every combo you build

• The Tron Modes progression · Medium

  Three scoring boosts strobe at the T-R-O-N targets, and the Zen lane is the shortcut that makes starting all three in a row realistic.

  Reward: 2x or 3x scoring, table-wide or shot-specific

• Terminate Clu mode · Medium

  Light all three C-L-U lanes across the inlanes and the scoop readies Terminate Clu — a timed run across four Clu-marked shots.

  Reward: 250K for the first shot, 500K each after

• Zuse Fast Scoring mode · Medium

  Spell Z-U-S-E and the mode starts immediately — every switch on the table scores for 25 seconds, and the same targets can extend the clock while it runs.

  Reward: 10K per switch, climbing with target hits

• Find Flynn mode · Easy

  Roll the Zen lane and a red arrow starts roaming the table's six major shots. It isn't timed — the arrow just keeps moving until you catch it.

  Reward: 275K climbing by 50K

• Follow Gem mode · Medium

  Three shots to the Gem loop start it the first time, growing by two each time after. Once running, each repeat shot to the same loop pays 250K more than the last, from a 750K opener up to a 2.5M cap.

  Reward: 750K climbing to a 2.5M cap

• Light Cycle Multiball multiball · Medium

  Light four of the six Light Cycle inserts and the scoop starts a fast, combo-heavy two-ball multiball built around one specific ramp-to-loop-to-ramp chain.

  Reward: 350K per jackpot, 750K super, fixed double super

• Quorra Multiball multiball · Medium

  Five shots to the left inner loop qualify it, and the scoop starts a two-ball mode with unlimited jackpots and real add-a-ball potential.

  Reward: 250K jackpots capped at 500K, a growing Super Jackpot

• Disc Multiball multiball · Hard

  The table's flagship multiball. Clear the Recognizer bank, feed the spinning disc to qualify, then work two full rounds of jackpots for the biggest Super Jackpot in the game.

  Reward: 250K jackpots, 500K double jackpots, a multi-million Super

• Sea Of Simulation wizard · Hard

  The safety net wizard mode. Get every progress-ladder insert at least flashing and the scoop opens a single untimed ball to finish off whatever's still incomplete.

  Reward: 1M-9M in lump sums, plus a shot at every unfinished feature

• The Portal wizard · Hard

  Get all nine ladder inserts solidly lit and the scoop opens the real finale — a four-ball multiball with twenty-one jackpots spread across the whole table.

  Reward: 500K climbing per jackpot, then a huge Super Jackpot

• End Of Line Multiball secret · Hard

  LE cabinets only. Spell D-A-F-T-P-U-N-K on the left ramp — twice — for a hidden extra ball and a bonus multiball that non-LE owners never see.

  Reward: Extra ball, then a bonus multiball

• End Of Ball Bonus progression · Easy

  Built entirely from the progress ladder rather than switch counts — a flashing insert is worth 50K, a solid one 250K, and reaching the wizard modes pays out far more on top.

  Reward: 50K base, climbing with every ladder insert you've touched

• Know Your Release Valves strategy · Easy

  Tron moves fast enough that having a safe shot to take under pressure matters as much as chasing points. The left ramp and the scoop are both built for exactly that.

  Reward: Ball control, plus whatever the shot happens to pay