Call of Duty: The Board Game, a tabletop adaptation of Activision’s seminal shooter series, has been announced with a 2024 release window. A Kickstarter campaign for the strategy game will launch this fall.
As reported by Variety, the Call of Duty tabletop game comes from Arcane Wonders, the company behind Sheriff of Nottingham and Onitama. It’s set within the rebooted Modern Warfare timeline and will feature maps and weapons from the games.
Designer Bryan Pope also told Polygon: “[Players] simultaneously plan out [their] moves secretly and then resolve those at the same time out on the map. Line of sight is easily determined by colored lines on the map, and when you do have eyes on your opponent, combat happens. It’s all about outsmarting and outmaneuvering your opponent to get in the best possible position to win in a fight.”
However, Arcane’s ambitions for Call of Duty: The Board Game extend well beyond the two-player, $50 USD base game. It’s being treated similar to a live-service video game with additional content — operators/miniatures, weapons, maps, and modes (including Zombies and co-op campaigns) — being added over time. Pope described it as “a series of products within the same game system.”
Arcane president Robert Geistlinger also explained the decision to finance the project through crowdfunding despite the backing of a multibillion-dollar company. Activision provided the Call of Duty license, “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.”
Creative director Walter Barber noted crowdfunding is the only way pre-painted miniatures can be included in the core game, for example.
As for the video game series, Call of Duty 2023 is reportedly being led by Sledgehammer Games (developers of Call of Duty: Vanguard) and will continue the story of last year’s Modern Warfare 2.
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Jordan covers games, shows, and movies as a freelance writer for IGN.