CMON Games’ brand new Dune board game – Dune: War for Arrakis – has already raised nearly half a million dollars from backers since launching on Kickstarter on Wednesday, and its co-creator has hinted to Wargamer there may already be expansion content in the works.
Francesco Nepitello – who created both Dune: War for Arrakis and the legendary Lord of the Rings board game, War of the Ring, alongside fellow designer Marco Maggi – indicates to Wargamer in an exclusive interview that he and CMON have extra War for Arrakis content up their sleeves, with potential for full expansions in the future – though he says the core version of the game is already a “complete experience”.
“Having used War of the Ring as the blueprint for the development of this game brought us to a design that is complete,” Nepitello explains.
“I think that it’s going to be easier for the fans to pledge for the game, because it’s not going to be: ‘Oh, I’m going to end up spending $500 on this, because of so many expansions’ and so on.”
“But of course, if you’re a diehard fan, a hardcore fan, you like Dune, you like everything that’s connected to it, you’re going to appreciate having some more”, he tells us.
“And so we have more. I can’t say how much more.”
He didn’t elaborate – and, true to Nepitello’s word, the Dune: War for Arrakis Kickstarter launched on Wednesday, September 14 with a single $110-or-more pledge level, and no optional extras or expansions (though the campaign has so far unlocked 12 stretch goals).
There’s been no whiff of further add-ons from publisher CMON just yet – but it certainly seems like Nepitello’s open to expanding War for Arrakis.
“On one side I would have loved to see much, much more,” he tells us.
“Maybe in the future, we could do more, for example, if we wanted to expand to other novels, to other things.”
Dune: War for Arrakis is a two-hour-long, head-to-head strategy board game for two to four players, simulating the desert war in the latter part of Frank Herbert’s original 1965 sci-fi novel. It promises to function as an asymmetric wargame, offering vastly different victory conditions and resources to its two factions: the dominant House Harkonnen (supported by the Galactic Emperor) and scattered House Atreides (supported by the Fremen rebels of planet Arrakis).
CMON Games first announced Dune: War for Arrakis on July 15, 2022, and launched its Kickstarter crowdfunding campaign for the game on September 14. The campaign is scheduled to close at 6pm PT / 9pm ET on Thursday, September 22.
For our full, exclusive interview with Francesco Nepitello, and lots more coverage of Dune: War for Arrakis, alongside all the best board games, tabletop RPGs, trading card games, Warhammer 40k, and more, stick with Wargamer.