Welcome to our new weekly segment, “This Week in Gaming.” We hope to bring you some of the hottest news in the gaming industry every week, but bear with us as we get this off the ground. Please let us know if you have any suggestions or comments!
It’s the week before Gen Con 2016 which means there have been lots of big announcements! Let’s jump in!
Hot off the press, this morning, is Star Wars: Destiny. Fantasy Flight just made a surprise announcement about their new collectable card/dice game. With the massive success of Dice Masters, there’s no surprise that other publishers are getting in on the fun. It looks like this one is a mixture of a competitive card game and collectible dice game. The game will include characters from all seven movies, which means you can finally live out your fantasies of Kylo Ren battling Obi-Wan! Each pack will come with five cards and one die. Starter decks will also be available so you can play with your friends right out of the gate. I’m definitely curious to give this one a try next week at Gen Con!
Fresh off the tail of the Spiel Des Jahres nomination, Asmodee has announced the first expansion of 7 Wonders Duel. Pantheon brings in some new variety with the introduction of gods, temples, and new wonders. I loved Duel even more than the original 7 Wonders due to it’s use of more direct interaction between players. Hopefully this one continues on with that feeling. I’m excited to see more about this as we get closer to its fourth quarter release, but with Duel being such a hit (and one of my favorites of last year), I have no doubt that it will be big!
Probably one of the biggest shockers this week was the surprise leak of three completely unannounced games that somehow made their way onto shelves early at a few Target’s. The three games that popped up are Codenames: Deep Undercover which is an “adult” version of Codenames, Ticket To Ride: First Journey which is a new children’s version of the beloved classic, and Machi Koro: Bright Lights, Big City which seems to be some sort of new core set with new cards. These three Target exclusives came out of nowhere and I was thoroughly surprised to see them appear in retail so suddenly! It seems a few lucky Redditors were able to get their hands on these, so i’m sure we’ll see more information pretty soon. My guess is that they will be officially announced at Gen Con, so we’ll see what happens next week!
We’ll end this week’s news with the controversial announcement that Asmodee is in talks to acquire F2Z entertainment. After their acquisitions of Days of Wonder and Fantasy Flight over the past few years, it’s no surprise that Asmodee is continuing in absorbing other publishing companies. If this goes through, they will have most of the biggest names in gaming under one roof! We’ve yet to really see if these acquisitions are good or bad for the industry as a whole, but no one can deny that Asmodee is becoming the powerhouse company in the industry.
What do you think about this big news? Do you think it’s good or bad for the industry? Let us know your thoughts on that and the other big announcements this week in the comments below!
