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Tron: Legacy

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

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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.

How Tron: Legacy plays

Tron: Legacy is a fast Grid built on nine feature inserts and the combo the game never advertises -- End of Line, cashed at Flynn's scoop. Light every insert on the ladder to open the wizard modes: Sea of Simulation to mop up what you missed, then The Portal for the real finale.

The loop

  1. Bounce a soft plunge off Flynn's divider into the scoop to open the ball and grab the waiting mystery award.
  2. Make any of the six major shots, then send the return on into the scoop before it can settle for an End of Line combo.
  3. Strobe-lock a Tron mode at the T-R-O-N targets -- Double Scoring above all -- using the Zen lane to start it in a single hit.
  4. Feed the Recognizer bank and the disc behind it for Disc Multiball, and qualify Light Cycle and Quorra at their loops for two more.
  5. Light all nine ladder inserts to open the scoop for Sea of Simulation, then The Portal.

Reading the lights

  • C-L-U Lanes (lanes) — lit: Three rollovers spread across both inlanes spell C-L-U; a lit letter is one still open, and rolling a lit inlane banks it. · then: Spell all three and the scoop arms Terminate Clu, a countdown over four Clu-lit shots that pays 250K for the first and 500K for each one after. Relight C-L-U while the mode runs and it spots whichever of the four you still owe. · control: Either flipper button: either flipper button hops which C-L-U letter is flashing from one inlane to the other, so you can arm the letter you still need on whichever side the ball is about to come down (as the ball heads back toward the inlanes)
  • T-R-O-N Targets (mode) — lit: The four T-R-O-N standups gate three scoring boosts that strobe one at a time; hit any target to lock in whichever is flashing, then clear the bank to start it. · flashing: Whichever boost is currently up -- Double Scoring, Super Bumpers or Super Spinners -- is the one a target hit locks in. · then: Double Scoring doubles the whole table and is by far the strongest; the other two only triple their own shot. Take the Zen lane first and the very next target you hit fires the flashing boost on its own, and stacking a few Zen rolls lets one hit chain all three. The Zen lane also sets the roaming Find Flynn arrow loose.
  • End Of Line Combo (shot arrows) — lit: Right after you make any of the six big shots -- the two ramps, the two orbits, the two inner loops -- its arrow flashes for a moment as the combo window. · then: Snap that flash into the scoop while the ball is still live and you bank an End of Line combo -- quietly the biggest single earner here, though nothing on the display ever says as much. The value climbs with each one and never slides back on its own -- but let it drain before you cash in and it is wiped down to a half million on the next ball.
  • Light Cycle Inserts (status) — lit: The left ramp is the Light Cycle ramp, loopable all day off the right flipper; lighting four Light Cycle inserts out of the six arms the multiball at the scoop, so you can leave out the two shots you like least. · then: Start it at the scoop for a fast two-ball run built around one chain: a left ramp jackpot lights the Quorra super over at the inner loop, and an immediate right ramp piles a fixed double on top of it.
  • Quorra Loop (status) — lit: The left inner loop is the Quorra spinner; five separate visits qualify the multiball, and spinning it many times on one trip still earns just a single visit, so give it a beat between shots. · then: Fire it up at the scoop for a two-ball mode with no ceiling on jackpots -- the Recognizer bank can bolt on up to two more balls for a full house of four -- and cash the growing Super over at the Gem loop.
  • Recognizer & Disc (mode) — lit: The motorized Recognizer bank guards the spinning disc -- all three of its targets act as one, so any hit chips away -- and enough hits drop it to expose the disc, which you then feed enough times over to qualify Disc Multiball. · then: This is the table's flagship: work two full rounds -- collect ten discs across the lit shots, then three double jackpots when the bank rises again -- and cash a Super on the disc that dwarfs everything else, well past twenty million with Double Scoring going.
  • Gem Loop (multiplier) — lit: The Gem loop sits just above the right ramp and is the trickiest clean shot the table has; a few shots to it start Follow Gem, and every Gem shot also adds a notch to your end-of-ball bonus multiplier. · then: Keep hammering the loop while the mode runs -- every extra loop is worth 250K over the one before, climbing to a two-and-a-half-million ceiling -- and lean on it late, since finishing Sea of Simulation wants a Gem shot too. Spinner passes stretch the clock.
  • Flynn's Scoop (status) — lit: Flynn's Arcade scoop holds the mystery award, lit as every ball starts and cheap to relight afterward -- a single right-orbit shot arms the next one. · then: It is also the table's safety valve and the cash-in point for End of Line combos, Terminate Clu and every multiball start, so from the left flipper there is nearly always something worth dropping in for.

Lane change: the flipper buttons move the lit lane. Either flipper button hops the flashing C-L-U letter from one inlane to the other, so tap it as the ball returns to arm the letter you still need on the side it is coming down. Lighting all three C-L-U rollovers readies Terminate Clu at the scoop, the timed four-shot run that is the payoff. The T-R-O-N modes, by contrast, auto-strobe and are locked in by a target hit rather than the flippers.

Start scoring

  • Ball one — Groove the soft plunge that kisses Flynn's divider into the scoop -- 500K and the mystery award in one -- and learn the two harder starts: the divider kicking right toward a left-ramp shot, and a held-flipper full plunge carried round to the upper flipper for the right ramp. Then start banking End of Line combos, the quiet best score on the table. — Arcade Skill Shot, Two More Ways To Start, End Of Line Combo
  • Building — Work the feature ladder: strobe-lock Double Scoring at the T-R-O-N targets, spell Z-U-S-E for a switch-scoring frenzy, run down the roaming Find Flynn arrow, and start the three multiballs -- Light Cycle, Quorra and the flagship Disc. Stack Double Scoring under a multiball and the jackpots balloon. — The Tron Modes, Zuse Fast Scoring, Find Flynn, Light Cycle Multiball, Quorra Multiball, Disc Multiball
  • The big one — Everything points at the ladder's two ends. Get all nine inserts at least flashing and the scoop opens Sea of Simulation, an untimed ball that pays out your solid inserts and lets you finish the rest. Drive all nine solid and the scoop opens The Portal -- a four-ball finale spraying twenty-one jackpots across the table into one enormous Super. On LE cabinets, spelling the Daft Punk name on the left ramp twice over hides an extra ball and a bonus multiball on top. — Sea Of Simulation, The Portal, End Of Line Multiball

Does Tron: Legacy have an action button?

Nothing on the lockdown bar — this landed a year before Stern started fitting action buttons. Shooter rod and flippers only, though holding the left flipper in before a full plunge is worth learning: it sends the ball the long way around to the upper flipper.

Goals in Tron: Legacy

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

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