If you’re tired of losing The Settlers of Catan to your best friend’s wife; it’s time to take back control of the weekly game night with Call of Duty: The Boardgame – an upcoming in-real-life tabletop game spawned from the minds of Activision, Arcane Wonders with some more help from Genuine Entertainment and Evolution.
There’s just one problem. Call of Duty: The Boardgame is, for some reason, planning to launch a Kickstarter campaign later this year, with a 2024 release date in mind. It seems that Catan losing streak could plague us for yet another year.
‘We’re not in Catan anymore’
If you were hoping that the announcement trailer would, you know, incite some sort of emotion other than confusion, you’d be dead wrong. The trailer gives nothing to go on, other than a brief look at how far along Activision’s graphic design intern has come over the past few months. Nice one, Gary.
Fortunately, Variety managed to speak to the CEO of Arcane Wonders – Bryan Pope – about the launch of the boardgame. “We’re thrilled to be partnering with Activision to bring the ‘Call of Duty’ franchise to the tabletop,” he said. “As lifelong COD fans, we’ve worked hard to capture the scope, stakes, and sheer intensity of the video games in ways that COD fans and board gamers new and old will love. We’re looking forward to bringing the unforgettable fun and competitive frenzy of COD to game night for years to come.”
We do know that the game will be set during the current rebooted timeline of the Modern Warfare series and feature guns and maps from the games. While we don’t know the ins and outs of the game’s structure, players will take on the role of soldiers in the Modern Warfare universe, battling it out between each player in a number of scenarios and gameplay modes.
Arcane Wonders’ Bryan Pope gave a little more insight into the game while speaking with Polygon, mentioning that the base game will consist of two players and cost R910 ($50) at retailers upon launch. The worst bit? Arcane Wonders is using more than just Activision’s assets, opting to replicate the game company’s live-service ideals. As the game grows, Arcane Wonders has plans in place to release “cooperative campaigns for the game in the future that will allow 1-4 players to progress through a challenging and immersive Call of Duty story.”
Read More: Microsoft says Sony can keep Call of Duty on the PlayStation for at least ten years
$50 to help a corporation in need
You’re probably wondering why Activision, a company that’s being pursued by Microsoft for $68.7 billion, is going down the crowdfunding route, right? According to Arcane Wonders President, Robert Geistlinger, it isn’t.
“It’s fairly common for board games to crowdfund and of course this is an officially licensed game being produced by us here at Arcane Wonders. The Activision team has been a wonderful partner in allowing us to create and play in their world, but at the end of the day, this is our experience that we’re bringing to gamers, and that team has kindly allowed us to use whatever tools and platforms we feel are necessary to make the best version of our game for their fans.”
The game apparently makes use of “high-quality, pre-painted miniatures” that were too expensive to create without the help of crowdfunding or pricing the game too high. “By using crowdfunding first, we can make exactly the game we want to make, and exactly at the retail price we want to offer it,” says the creative director at Arcane Wonders, Walter Barber.
If you’re keen to contribute to Activision’s foray into the world of board games, you can sign up to hear news about the Kickstarter campaign here, which is set to go live in Spring 2023 (or Fall if you’re in the US).
Source: Polygon