All Kick-Ass, no Kickstarter: CMON’s comic-book co-op is heading straight to shops later this year

The upcoming Kick-Ass board game is skipping a crowdfunding campaign and landing directly in shops.

That’s the announcement from Rising Sun and Zombicide studio CMON, which officially confirmed that it wouldn’t be bringing its latest high-profile comic-book adaptation to Kickstarter as the result of a “busy production schedule in 2018”.

“We didn’t feel that we could do justice to a Kickstarter campaign for Kick Ass: The Board Game,” CMON continued. “The decision has been made for this cooperative adventure to go directly to retail.”

CMON is arguably one of the tabletop publishers best known for taking its various projects through the crowdfunding gauntlet to great success – even making its last comics-based game, HATE, exclusive to Kickstarter.

Between Rising Sun, the Zombicide series and its other campaigns, the studio has racked up tens of millions of dollars and achieved some of the highest-funded tabletop projects in Kickstarter’s history. However, it has also attracted criticism from some fans for its Kickstarter-only expansions, as well as accusations of retail editions of games feeling incomplete as a result of the piecemeal offering of add-on content.

There should hopefully be no such concerns when it comes to Kick-Ass, which is due to arrive in shops in the third quarter of 2018.

The game is a co-op board game based on the original comics rather than the film adaptations, with players controlling characters including Kick Ass, Hit Girl and Big Daddy as they juggle saving New York City from a supervillain while dealing with the ramifications of their alter-egos on their personal lives. There are seven heroes in the mix, each with unique gear and activation cards, who will face off against five bosses. The gameplay is based around area control similar to The Godfather: Corleone's Empire, with players also needing to manage their character's social media presence as they help citizens and ensure they don't turn up late to work.

The game will include brand new artwork created specifically for the tabletop, as well as CMON’s signature use of miniatures. The more things change, the more they stay the same.