Steamforged Games has revealed a new Horizon Forbidden West board game, Seeds of Rebellion, which will come to Kickstarter on November 21, 2023. The game looks to build on the systems of the Horizon Zero Dawn board game, released in 2020. A key new ingredient, Steamforged says, is story.
Horizon Forbidden West: Seeds of Rebellion is an upcoming co-op board game for 1-4 players. According to the reveal announcement, it boasts “a narrative engine” with “meaningful decisions that shape your quest”, as well as “in-depth combat encounters” where players have all sorts of abilities they can use to take out robotic foes. There’s also a stealth system, apparently, for when the bionic baddies look too tough.
In a blogpost published alongside the game’s announcement, Steamforged says that Horizon Zero Dawn is “consistently one of our most popular games, with people coming to our show stands and socials to ask when we’ll be making a Forbidden West game.”
Apparently, one of the game’s more common criticisms was a lack of story, something Steamforged says it didn’t think was possible for the game. It says, however, that the company has “pulled out all the stops” to fix this issue for the new title, working with the video game dev team at Guerilla Games to develop an in-canon narrative.
Apparently, Seeds of Rebellion will be a prequel to the Horizon Forbidden West video game, taking place before Aloy shows up. Rather than the RPG’s main protagonist, players will embody Marshals of different clans in the region.
We can expect more information on the game in the near future, as Steamforged has promised weekly dev diaries from mid-October onwards.
Steamforged Games has made a name for itself creating board game adaptations of popular video game franchises. We’ve had a play already with their upcoming Monster Hunter Iceborne and a hands-on look at the Elden Ring board game. They’re particularly known for their big, chonky, very pretty miniatures.
Check out out the best board games of all time here – and if you’re looking for something a bit more complex, these are the strategy board games we recommend.