Steamforged Take On The Monster Hunter: World Board Game
August 25, 2020 by brennon
Steamforged Games have revealed more details about their upcoming project, Monster Hunter: World - The Board Game. They've tackled Resident Evil, Dark Souls, Horizon: Zero Dawn and now they are venturing forth to try and make a game based on the highly tactical and replayable Monster Hunter video games.
Monster Hunter: World - The Board Game // Steamforged Games
In Monster Hunter: World - The Board Game you and your companions are going to take on the role of the hunters who head out into the wilderness to bring down some of the biggest and baddest creatures out there. Considering the exceptional size and scope of the video game, the board game is broken down into manageable chunks so that a group of players can undertake expeditions and hunts in a way that makes sense for the tabletop.
A group will have to agree to undertake a certain quest which could span over multiple sessions or one big one dependant on what exactly they are trying to hunt. Within this you'll have to decide how to spend your in-game time wisely, dividing it between preparing, hunting, exploring and more. All of this leads to a final tactical confrontation with one of the massive monsters in the set which is where the meat of the game is.
Monster Hunter: World Miniatures // Steamforged Games
When it comes to tackling those big monsters you'll have to master your weapon deck and work out the best way to watch the monster's behaviour and place yourself in advantageous positions to strike at it. As well as plenty of tactical decision making you'll also have juggle "aggro" like a proper video game which will focus the monster's attention onto specific heroes.
Being able to juggle all of these various elements is going to be very interesting and I am looking forward to seeing how gameplay looks in demos and previews. In terms of replay value, it seems like a lot of the focus is moving towards trying to tackle those different monsters and then seeing whether or not you can tackle them in a more efficient way. I'm sure expansions are also planned in order to send you to tackle different creatures in various biomes.
There isn't a plan yet as to how the game will be sold but according to the Polygon article, they are planning to keep the core game within the $100 price range.
Are you interested in this?
"As well as plenty of tactical decision making you'll also have juggle "aggro" like a proper video game which will focus the monster's attention onto specific heroes..."
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Nah.
Pass.
Nooooo, not Steamforged !!!
Whle thos eminiatures look good this is easy pass for me.
Have played the console game since it began but I’m not sold on the idea of this
I’d like to paint the monsters, but that’s about the only interest I have in this.
And this is all about licencing the IP. Capcom get to sell a licence to someone to make toys AND also a licence for a board game which is nothing more than plastic toys tacked on to a (possibly) half arsed game.
There are 2 main issues with this and why I wouldn’t pledge. 1) it’s steamforged games and they are way behind on a current Kickstarter and Dark Souls was a complete shambles by all accounts as well. 2) even if this was someone I trust on KS like Mythic or Mantic then I am not sure how they would capture the quick pace, random encounters and crazy scale of the game well enough to warrant a pledge. I may pick up some monsters if it actually funds because they are potentially epic sculpts. I hope I am wrong and they can put the KS woes behind them and deliver on time with no issues.
? Dark Souls was fine. Everything was delivered (at least the bits I picked).
The only thing ‘wrong’ with it was that it was a licensed product and they fell into the trap of doing too many stretchgoals.
As such I kind of fear the same will happen to this one as well.
The game it is based on is *ahem* monstruous …
i think we need a bigger fighter?
Nope not interested
I wanted a resident evil skirmish game to take on walking dead and well he got a board game with very dark tiles….
If you just want miniatures of monsters from this game, just go to Amazon and type in Monster Hunter Miniatures. Capcom does a line of pre painted miniatures for display purposes. Although they are blind box, which is annoying.
They look pretty decent, I picked up a few for a Jungle themed D&D session. Scale may not always be perfect, but who cares about that.
As for SteamForged games… I am not sure I would back another kickstarter of theirs.
I backed Horizon Zero Dawn, and it has been an “interesting” campaign. Not the roughest I have ever backed, but definitely the oddest choices where made.
Like releasing the core box this year, and all the expansions next year and stretch goals next year. This is after they said that everything was “basically” done and ready to go. Then they blamed covid and said that only the core comes out this year, and all the expansions/Stretch goals will be the middle of next year? That to me just doesn’t make any sense. A delay makes sense all things considered, but well over half a year just doesn’t feel right.
I expect they will be going to Retail with the Core Set as soon as possible, perhaps they need the money. I get that, but not happy with what that says about their handling the KS money. That is just my guess though, no evidence. What is not a guess is how bad of an idea it is taking an IP boardgame like this to retail with out any of the “Large/big” monsters to hunt. The largest monster in the core set is a bellowsback. That is just dumb. I mean really really dumb. Boardgames hate waiting for expansions, waiting over half a year… not smart.
Players are going to want to fight the big guys, they will tear through the core set and be done with it way way before any large foes are released. Not smart planning. Boardgames live or die so fast these days. I mean who doesnt want to fight a thunderjaw like right away.
Other choices… offering a limited edition “slip” case for backers to store the core set and two expansions, then waiting to the last moment to say no we aren’t doing that. Then giving a stupid answer that its because there are to many stretch goals so we cant get them all in three boxes. So why bother doing anything.
Personally, I dont mind losing something like that… it happens in KSers. But the way they waited forever to tell backers something that was obviously decided very early on was just bad form. Plus the way they broke the news and shrugged it off like who would care, no one really seems to have missed it anyways. Again, it was just kind of flippant about what is technically just as an important part of the promised product as anything else. And they have made zero effort to smooth things over or even try to make some amends.
Lastily, three of the expansions from the kickstarter are just no longer going to retail. They didnt start out being KS exclusive. But all of sudden they just wrote those off for retail launch. Which again, makes me wonder what is going on with this game. It also makes me wonder if the content for those three expansions will be any good at all. Lets face it they arent going to retail, so there is no real urgency to make them great.
One of the expansions is the “heart of nora”, which is the deathbringer expansion. Really, thats the one you cut? Why would you cut that from the retail launch? Seriously.
So lots of just plain flippant and odd choices. Says alot about the company.
Dakka rumormill is that SF has been taken over by investors who, while they have a gaming background, are more interested in IP-based boardgames than supporting Guild Ball, which has been dropped.
> I expect they will be going to Retail with the Core Set as soon as possible, perhaps they need the money. I get that, but not happy with what that says about their handling the KS money. That is just my guess though, no evidence.
In the early days of KS, you indeed had companies who’d take all the KS money and use it for core product, expecting that retail sales would fund future KS product. And this would not always happen. Palladium was the worst of this, with Robotech. Unfortunately, with KS, you have no way of accounting for how a company spends its KS funds. I’ve also learned the hard way through Cryptozoic’s Walking Dead that you should not let the IP affect your decision to back a KS.
@ced1106 What was wrong with Cryptozoic’s Walking Dead?
Some of the worst miniatures I’ve ever seen. Lack of details, and poorly assembled. Those defending the miniatures called them “boardgame miniatures”. Except, apparently, this is the *only* boardgame that has “boardgame miniatures”, since I’ve seen no other boardgames’ miniatures defended this way.
I’m happy to part with my copy for whatever I paid for it, although I’d have to wait until after the pandemic to ship it.
“The miniatures are not very good. They are not as terrible as some have said, but let’s be honest… they are not what was promised. Where arms have been joined (cause some needed to be glued again) most have gaps only green stuff could fix. A handful have so little detail I’m sure the actors would never have signed off on them in this state, and I don’t think I have ever needed to water treat so many miniatures in my life. However, they are board game figures and therefore I’m inclined to give them a pass.
The clip on bases are terrible. I own numerous games that use them, and these are by far the worse. Seems petty but they’re effort to put on and take off, and one of my was warped beyond use. Fun times.
The tokens are fine. That’s it though, they are fine. Nothing special, nothing terrible. With the exception of the Threat and Morale tokens, which I have already thrown in the bin and use other tokens for, all of the tokens in the game do their job.
The scenario sheets are just sheets of paper. Would’ve been nice for Cryptozoic to make them A4 so we could all (easily) laminate them, however, as it stands you’ll need to use an A3 laminating pouch and then cut a 3rd off. There is a lot of wasted space on them (more on that later) and the setup instructions are bare bones – to be kind.
The survivor sheets are also thin and far too big. Cryptozoic could’ve made them smaller, or, added more functionality to them. As I mentioned about wasted space earlier, a 3rd of each sheet is taken up with artwork, and yet there is no indicated spaces for other tokens. The full logo is on every sheet, and yet they couldn’t add the names of traits. Oh and one of my sheets came with a tear in it, so thanks for that.
Gameplay wise, the game is good. The mechanics are interesting, and although the difficulty of the scenarios is a little easier than I’d like, I’m sure that’ll ramp up in later scenarios. Dice are great (nobody has mentioned dice, but they’re good) and rolling them feels satisfying. Setup and teardown is on that edge of being “good” and “too long”, so that’s really nice.
For a long time I gave it pass, but now I realise that was due to buyer’s remorse. If you pledged for The Walking Dead: No Sanctuary and enjoy it, then awesome. I’m envious of you! The Sadler brothers have designed a good game, but unfortunately, Cryptozoic Entertainment cut too many corners and made a terrible product.
I imagine after numerous more games, and time spent really getting those rules embedded in my brain, the theme and enjoyment will come out. As it stands, checking the rulebook every 2 minutes because you cannot remember which ability is which, or how to resolve a fully stressed ally, just pulls you out of the game.”
https://boardgamegeek.com/thread/1933630/my-review
Thanks @ced1106 – I backed the game but have been so busy (and backed so many other Kickstarters…) that I haven’t opened it yet.
I’ll try to keep an open mind!
Reaper thread on the the quality of SF’s Critical Role mini’s. Not good.
https://forum.reapermini.com/index.php?/topic/81537-critical-role-official-miniatures-from-steamforged-games/page/6/&tab=comments#comment-1965614
This looks interesting!