Call of Cthulhu studio making its first Lovecraftian board game in 30 years

The studio responsible for seminal horror roleplaying game Call of Cthulhu has announced it is working on its first board game set in the Lovecraftian universe for more than three decades.

Chaosium’s last board game based on the Cthulhu Mythos was the original 1987 edition of Richard Launius’ Arkham Horror, the influential adventure game based on Call of Cthulhu that would later give rise to Eldritch Horror, Mansions of Madness and Elder Sign as part of Fantasy Flight’s Arkham Horror Files series.

In the time since, Chaosium remained largely focused on roleplaying games, putting out several revised editions of Call of Cthulhu and RuneQuest, but also dabbled in collectible card games, most notably the well-received but commercially-challenged Call of Cthulhu spin-off Mythos, which was discontinued just a year after its 1996 launch.

The studio returned to card games last year with Khan of Khans, a title created by Reiner Knizia based on Greg Stafford’s world of Glorantha, the fantasy setting for RuneQuest, White Bear and Red Moon, and HeroQuest. It also worked with Fantasy Flight on an adaptation of iconic Call of Cthulhu campaign Masks of Nyarlathotep as an expansion for Eldritch Horror, which came out earlier this year.

Now, Chaosium plans to fully return to the Call of Cthulhu universe in Miskatonic University: The Restricted Collection, an upcoming push-your-luck board game also designed by Knizia that is set in the Orne Library of the classic Lovecraft location.

According to its brief first description, “the game features grimoires, elder signs, academic politics and madness – and that endlessly renewable resource, graduate students!”

Further details will surely follow in the game’s upcoming Kickstarter campaign, which is due to go live in late April.