History of the World designers to bow out next year with ‘final’ game The Romans

Veteran designing trio the Ragnar Brothers have announced that their next game will be their last.

Gary Dicken and actual brothers Stephen and Phil Kendall have been putting games out under the label for three decades, including their early ‘90s epic civilisation-builder History of the World (which was recently revamped for a fabulous new edition), Fire & Axe: A Viking Saga and Angola.

The designers’ recent ‘Quantum’ trilogy, which began in 2016 with New World exploration game Nina & Pinta and continued with this year’s tale of Scottish colonists Darien Apocalypse, will come to a close with The Romans, a blend of militaristic territorial expansion and political grappling set in the growing ancient Italian capital.

As with the other Quantum games’ depiction of quantum physics-inspired parallel universes, The Romans will give each player a different experience of building Rome from the ground-up into the thriving empire, with the players sharing some dice rolls to balance the luck-driven elements.

The Romans will also mark the end of the trio’s decades-long collaboration at least in name, with Stephen Kendall announcing on Twitter that it will be “the final game from Ragnar Brothers”.

The Romans is due to launch a Kickstarter campaign later this month, ahead of a planned release next year.