Lovers of monster massacring mutes, hellish demon legions, and/or the chainsaw based ripping and tearing of infernal flesh, your time has come: Modiphius' official DOOM board game has finally gone live for crowdfunding on Kickstarter. There are two versions of DOOM: Arena on offer (classic 1993 DOOM flavor, and 2025 DOOM The Dark Ages flavor) and a few more shiny bells and whistles besides.
Launched on Kickstarter on Tuesday, DOOM: Arena will be crowdfunding through Friday, November 21, and the cheapest pledge including a regular copy of the game - 1993 or Dark Ages edition, your choice - costs $60 (£45).
Key point: that gets you the Standard Edition game, with all the fighters represented in acrylic standees, and just one plastic Doomguy miniature. If you want the full set of plastic minis to play with, you'll need to pledge the Premium Edition, at a steeper (but still fairly reasonable) $80 (£60).
As I reported in my Gen Con 2025 DOOM Arena preview, designer Ben Maunder's core promise of "heavy metal chess" is a fair summary of the game you're getting here.
Like Chess, you have perfect information: all the pieces are on the board, and other player doesn't have any cards or tactics hidden from you. Also like Chess, your decision space each turn is really simple, but victory relies on planning moves ahead and predicting positions, sight lines, and choke points.
Unlike Chess, one player controls a single, bewilderingly deadly space marine (note the lowercase 's' and 'm' there), and the other commands the depthless legions of Hell. It makes this otherwise head-smashingly straightforward arena battler asymmetric - but in a nice, easy to understand way.
Doomguy wins by dealing out ungodly amounts of damage and leveling up to bigger and better guns; the demons win by spawning more and stronger creatures to surround and swamp him. It's very fun stuff, and I'm looking forward to playing the full version.
Speaking of: there are seven tiers to the Kickstarter, and the cheapest isn't even the game itself - it's just your friendly local Doomguy in plastic miniature form, for a very reasonable seven bucks.
Beyond that, the Kickstarter tiers are:
- Standard Edition (1993 or Dark Ages) - $60 (£45)
- Premium Edition (1993 or Dark Ages) - $80 (£60)
- Both Premium Editions (1993 and Dark Ages) - $161 (£120)
- Both Premium Editions and Reinforcements (extra minis for both sides) - $255 (£190)
- All In (Premium Editions of both core boxes, both Slayer Models and the Expansions of both editions, Serrat Box, Atlan Box, the BFD,
both dice trays and Serrat Dragon Model) - $563 (£320)
So, what are those reinforcements and expansion boxes about, then? Mostly, they're adding a bunch more badass minis to the mix. If you're into the game, they'll bump it up with a bigger variety of hellspawn and super soldiers to fight with or against - but it doesn't look like they tweak the actual rules.
There's one "reinforcements" box each for the original DOOM and Dark Ages editions. The 1993 version adds two variant doomguys with heavy weapons, an Arch-Vile, and two Revenants (the tall skeleton guys with shoulder mounted missile launchers). The Dark Ages reinforcements are three chunkier models: a Pinky Rider, a Battle Knight, and an Arachnotron.
The two expansions revealed in Modiphius' Kickstarter page are Atlan and Serrat - both specifically for the Dark Ages edition of the game. The Atlan expansion includes the titular Night Sentinel walker and six of its Titan kin: two regular, two armored, and two cyclops. You also get an additional double sided map that lets you play larger games, with more demons at a time.
Serrat, the priciest expansion when bought standalone, is kind of self explanatory: you get two different sized minis of the Doomslayer's massive mechanical dragon mount. By default in this box, it's an enemy - but if you also get the Atlan box, it can join your team.
For now, what's your take on this tabletop bloodfest? Will you be backing DOOM: Arena? Join the free Wargamer Discord community and let us know. Or, for a bit more context, you can check out the ultimate competition in our guide to the best board games of all time.