Pacific Rim: Extinction could be the epic robots-vs-monsters game the film deserves

The Pacific Rim game finally has a name, details and a Kickstarter date – and it all sounds pretty promising so far.

Originally announced last year as an untitled project based on the upcoming sequel to Guillermo del Toro’s delightfully punchy 2013 flick, this year's Pacific Rim: Uprising, Pacific Rim: Extinction is a miniatures game that takes the big robots-against-bigger monsters to heart.

Two or more players control either the mecha-like jaegers and their pilots or the monstrous kaiju wrecking havoc across the city, both represented in-game by enormous 75mm models that come ready-painted.

The robots and monsters are controlled using a set of action cards, with six unique cards per character. The cards let players pull off attacks, tricks, blocks and other abilities, targeting different parts of their opponents to bring them down.

Among the characters confirmed are Gipsy Avenger and Saber Athena on the side of the humans, with Hakuja and Shrikethorn joining the kaiju roster, which is broken into categories determining the monsters’ power.

Extinction can be played as a quick-play head-to-head battle or in a series of scenarios with specific objectives to be achieved by either side first.

Although Extinction is described as a ‘miniatures’ game, it’s said to use an ‘invisible hex’ system – studio River Horse has teased more details alongside the Kickstarter campaign, which goes live on March 12th.