Reiner Knizia, prolific designer of hundreds of board games, has announced a reprint of Tigris and Euphrates, one of his most beloved designs. The reveal came in a video interview with BoardGameGeek on November 4, where Knizia said that the strategy game would be "re-released with wonderful new graphics" by artist Ian O'Toole. The reprint's publisher, 25th Century Games, will apparently bring the title to crowdfunding in Q1 2026.
Tigris and Euphrates is a tile board game where players construct civilizations around the two titular rivers. Everyone represents a faction with its own leaders, but the cities you build don't entirely belong to you. Just because you placed a civilization tile, that doesn't mean you're the one entitled to the victory points it creates - a well-placed opponent's leader might snatch the goods. Plus, as real estate grows scarce, kingdoms will collide, transforming the landscape and breaking up once-untouchable strongholds.
While tiles are drawn at random, it's fairly easy for players to clear their hand of any unhelpful options - making this a game that's far more about strategy than luck. Tigris and Euphrates rewards careful planning, and its relatively simple turn structure conceals a strategy board game of such rich complexity that it takes many playthroughs to master. It was the top-rated title on BoardGameGeek long ago, an accolade that's only held by the best board games in history.
There have been many editions of Tigris and Euphrates since Hans im Glück first published it in 1997. In fact, the board game community was expecting a reprint in 2023, but this was delayed. Bitewing Games' Nick Murray said at the time that this was due to the license changing hands and that the new licensee would deliver the reprint in "2024 or 2025" instead. Presumably, this is referring to 25th Century Games, a publisher that has a history of publishing Reiner Knizia games like Ra.
Knizia confirms in the BoardGameGeek interview that this is going to be a faithful reprinting of the core game as we know it, with nothing fundamental changing except a newer and shinier presentation, made possible by O'Toole and 25th Century Games.
And BoardGameGeek later confirmed that only be the main Tigris and Euphrates board game would be included in the Big Glow Up. Other related Knizia creations under the T&E name, such as 2005 card game reimplementation Contest of Kings, will not be reprinted as part of this product.
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