In addition to their already popular Guild Ball series, Steamforged Games’ booth at GenCon included demos of Godtear and dioramas of their Dark Souls board game. As an avid fan of Horizon Zero Dawn on PS4 I was excited to see miniatures in development based on the characters of that universe. Now Steamforged Games has released a Kickstarter for their Horizon Zero Dawn board game. The miniatures teased look amazing, though the intro video notes that “all assets shown are in development and subject to licensor approval”. 
Even so, there is a lot to be excited about here. Steamforged Games has successfully delivered four projects so far including: Dark Souls board game, Godtear, Resident Evil 2, and the massively popular Critical Role miniatures line. The Kickstarter pledge levels are very simple for HZD. One pledge level with the option to add on later gets you the core game, two expansions, and all stretch goals.
Another plus is being able to interact with the lore of HZD. From the Publishing in the Digital Age panel at GenCon, one point made by the panel was the importance of lore and background to the current gaming community. The proposed HZD game positions the players as members of the Hunter’s Lodge, pursuing the machines across different maps. The ability to play as Carja, Nora, Osseram, and Banuk with different skills potentially more of a role playing aspect. Also the potential model for the Osseram would work great in one of my D&D games as a cleric.
The gameplay itself looks similar to The Hunters AD 2114 in its semi-cooperative play and rules governing the behavior of the enemy miniatures and pieces. Like the Hunters, the concepts for minis promise some stunning pieces for hobbyists and gamers alike. Steamforged has historically delivered on detailed and dynamic miniatures. While Polygon notes that some imperfections occurred with the delivery of the Dark Souls game, Steamforged claims they have updated their pipeline to keep this from happening with future game releases.
For this fan of HZD and hobbyist painter, here’s to hoping. And, full disclosure, I backed the S*** out of it.
Ross Blythe is a Chicago based gamer interested in all things tabletop. He enjoys reading history as well as fiction, and so has a soft spot for historical wargames like Pike & Shotte. For the campaigns he runs as a DM he often looks to history for inspiration, for the lessons of the past to challenge the players at his table.
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