A prequel to the tale of Geralt of Rivia

The Witcher franchise is expanding with a new board game from team at Go on Board. The Witcher: Old World takes place long before the saga of Geralt of Rivia, and it’s being produced in partnership with CD Projekt Red. The project heads to Kickstarter in May, with delivery expected by April 2022. No price point has been announced. Those interested can sign up to be reminded once the crowdfunding campaign goes live.

According to a news release, The Witcher: Old World is a competitive, card-driven adventure game for 2-5 players with some light role-playing elements. Player characters will each come from a different Witcher school, which could include traditional factions like the School of the Wolf, Bear, Manticore, and Crane. Each of those schools will provide players with innate abilities that, when combined with a deck of cards, can be used to create powerful combinations and synergies. Like Gloomhaven, the deck will serve as a character’s hit points as well as triggers for special abilities and attacks. The same deck will also impact their movement speed for overland travel.

Image: Go on Board and CD Projekt Red

This isn’t Go on Board’s first board game, nor is it their first crowdfunding campaign. Two previous titles have been modestly successful. They include the dice-based Valhalla and Titans, which blends medieval history with fantasy wargaming. Like The Witcher: Old World, both of these previous games were designed by company co-founder Łukasz Woźniak.

With the Witcher license in play, expect a lengthy and complex crowdfunding campaign with many stretch goals. In a video announcement posted on Wednesday, Woźniak said there would be both a starter version and a deluxe version of the final product up for grabs. Renders show off several elaborate miniatures, including a massive Leshen, a forest-dwelling monster with a deer’s skull for a head.

This isn’t the first time that the Witcher franchise has been ported to the tabletop. In 2014, Fantasy Flight Games published The Witcher Adventure Game. Designed by Ignacy Trzewiczek, founder of Portal Games, the title is currently out of print. An authentic digital version, developed by CD Projekt in partnership with Can Explode, survives on Steam. There’s also a Witcher tabletop role-playing game by R. Talsorian Games, the same company that created the Cyberpunk role-playing franchise.