This War of Mine co-designer’s next board game is fantasy fight Monolith Arena

Michał Oracz, the co-creator of This War of Mine: The Board Game, has revealed his next project – and it’s a world away from his magnificent gritty wartime simulation.

Monolith Arena is a fantasy skirmish board game designed solely by Oracz, who also has credits on Neuroshima Hex! 3.0 and Cry Havoc, that pits asymmetric factions of elves, dwarves, humans and demons against each other on a hex-based battlefield.

At the heart of the game are order tiles that players draw from their faction’s stack, using them to command units around the board to attack opponents, hoping to eliminate their rivals’ banner.

The full ruleset involves secretly stacking the board tiles in a ‘monolith’ made up of plastic trays that then can be ‘unfolded’ and revealed, giving another tactical edge to battles.

As well as a one-on-one mode, Monolith Arena has a team variant that support either two teams of two or a three-on-one variation, with a typical match said to take around 30 minutes.

Robinson Crusoe, Imperial Setters and Detective studio Portal – which previously published Cry Havoc and Neuroshima Hex! – has announced that Monolith Arena will get its official European release at Essen on October 24th.