There may now be a glimmer of new hope for fans of the classic 2004 Heroscape board game as – 6 months after it shelved Avalon Hill’s planned reboot Heroscape: Age of Annihilation – publisher Hasbro has passed the game’s license to Renegade Game Studios, in an expansion of the two firms’ current partnership.
Neither Hasbro nor Renegade has given too many specifics about the new Heroscape content in development, but Renegade’s announcement of the deal, published on its site on Thursday, suggests Heroscape fans can at least expect a bunch of new models to join the game.
In that statement, Renegade says it’ll be releasing “all-new content, alongside the introduction of terrain packs, faction boxes, and more.”
“Going forward, Renegade hopes to introduce new models in a variety of configurations and price points for both new and hardcore Heroscape players,” it continues.
Renegade’s statement also says the firm “will partner with [in-house crowdfunding platform] Hasbro Pulse to make Heroscape available to as wide an audience as possible,” though it’s not yet clear exactly what form that’ll take.
“Heroscape brought a lot of people into hobby gaming and to this day there is a robust and passionate community,” Renegade’s President Scott Gaeta says in the announcement. “We look forward to growing that community and continuing to offer new and exciting models for gamers to enjoy.”
“Additionally, we will be partnering with hobby stores to give Heroscape and its community of players the best home possible where they can make new friends and engage in exciting battles across Valhalla,” Gaeta added.
The news comes around six months after Hasbro indefinitely shelved the game when Heroscape: Age of Annihilation – an ambitious, $250 big box ‘resurrected’ edition containing five all-new factions, 71 miniatures, and 151 plastic terrain pieces – failed to hit its crowdfunding target of $2 million.
As Avalon Hill’s head of design and development Chris Nadeau told Wargamer at the time, their new version of Heroscape had huge expansion potential, but everything relied on attracting 8000 backers at $250 each. It only made just over half of that and was, in Nadeau’s words, put “back in the vault”.
We’ll be keeping a close eye on what Renegade does with the Heroscape license, so keep checking Wargamer for the latest. In the meantime, you might enjoy some of the top-tier titles in our guides to the best miniature wargames; the best strategy board games; or even our team’s ultimate list of the best board games on offer.