In less than two hours, an amazing-looking board game based on Dark Souls has raised more than £190,000 ($350,112) on Kickstarter. They were only asking for £50,000 ($92,134), and it was funded in three minutes.
Dark Souls: The Board Game comes from Steamforged Games, developers of the medieval football game Guild Ball, and it’s officially licensed. Described as a 1-4 “combat exploration” game, here’s how Steamforged explains the gameplay:
Playable in either Solo or Co-op modes, players choose their role from a number of core Dark Souls character classes. Each class has a distinct role to play in the game, with a unique set of strengths and abilities.
With multiple difficulty modes and a high-level of replayability, this is a game designed to be deep enough to satisfy hard-core tabletop gamers whilst remaining accessible to newer players.
The game even has the series’ trademark bonfire mechanic, where players can level up, rest and head out back into the world. The problem? Bonfires also reset the world, and all the enemies you’ve defeated have returned. Awesome.
Each time you decide where to go, you will experience a new danger as you explore, with each new location a real risk to your hard-won progress. If you die, then you drop everything you have collected and reappear at the nearest bonfire. So do you return to the bonfire to rest and spend Souls to strengthen up, but in doing so fully reset the locations? Or do you press on and pray that the next encounter isn’t beyond your capabilities? After all, the next location may contain a clue to the Boss and how to defeat them.
You’ll even equip items with a similar interface to the game itself.
The attention to detail is astounding, and the figures might be worth it on their own. I’m not even that into board games and I’m tempted to buy one of these.
If you’re curious what it’s like to actually play, here’s a video:
The game’s scheduled for April 2017, so it will be a while before it materialises. (Just in time for Bloodborne 2?) If you’re wary of crowdfunding efforts, the game will show up in retail, too, so you can safely wait.
Several stretch goals have already been added, including a pyromancy class, and there’s likely to be several more before the campaign is up in 26 days.
Comments
12 responses to “Crowdfunded Dark Souls Board Game Raises $350,000 In Less Than Two Hours”
thats the most awesome thing i have seen in a while, looks great
+1 for a solo boardgame
I would be keen.
Holy shit – i realllly want this, as a very keen tabletop player, but damn my wife would kill me…. Quicker than any of these bosses too
YOU DIVORCED!
GIMME DEM TOYS
YES Please!
Looks pretty great and the demo seemed to faithfully recreate the anxiety of boss fights.
At first I was a bit put off by the amount of stuff contained, but watching the demo was brutal and they’ve perfectly captured the essence of the game.
If it’s officially licensed, why does it need to be Kickstarted?
This isn’t a marketing exercise where Bandai Namco paid a board game publisher to make the game. Steamforged Games are undoubtably paying Bandai Namco a decent chunk of money to be able to make this and then there are the usual production costs.
Annoyingly, it’s common for board game publishers to use Kickstarter to deal with the initial costs. Why invest your own capital when others will do it for you, interest free?
That is a very good question that is unlikely to have a very good answer.
Man I want this.