Steamforged Games’ Helldivers 2 board game hit the crowdfunding platform Gamefound on Tuesday, April 8, and immediately blew past its rather modest funding goal. At time of writing, the co-op board game based on Arrowhead Games Studios’ popular Playstation shooter has generated a whopping $1,070,000, with 12 days still left to go in the campaign.
Alongside the Gamefound launch, the studio, maker of tons of tie-in board games including Horizon Zero Dawn, Monster Hunter, and Elden Ring, dropped a trailer which makes the act of pushing little plastic minis around in a strategy board game look like pulse-racing, heart-pounding action. It’s a very clever way for the company to show off its minis, and give a sense of what the gameplay is trying to capture. The trailer is full of neat details, too – I’m in love with the way the models ‘bleed’ damage tokens, for instance.
As we mentioned, Helldivers 2 is available to back for the next 12 days. As you might expect from a crowdfunder board game – and especially a Steamforged title – there are all sorts of different pledge tiers available with various expansions. The basic one, that gets you the core box with four helldivers and nine buggy boys of various shapes and sizes, will set you back $78.80/£61.
From there, you have the option of upgrading your pledge to the $118.80/£92 tier, which gets you three add on boxes. Two of these have not yet been revealed, but the one that has brings the Patriot Exosuit mech to the game. Then for $317.67/£246 there’s the ludicrous ‘hell commander pledge’, which gives you everything Steamforged is producing for Helldivers 2, including two massive boss minis (the Impaler and the Biotitan), and a whole ‘nother enemy faction, the Automatons.
As for the gameplay, a version of the rulebook with a demo scenario is now freely available, so you can judge for yourself exactly how this cooperative board game plays. Basically, you take on missions with 1-3 friends, each kitted out with a unique loadout, running around a board and blasting bugs as you strive to complete a mission and not kill each other with friendly fire in the process. Initiative trackers and damage rolls seem central to the gameplay, and there’s a neat mechanic where you place little cubes to input different codes and unlock stratagems.
It’s worth noting that the prices above don’t take shipping into account. Shipping prices for each region are handily listed on the Gamefound page, though these are just estimates. They’re lowest for the UK, where Steamforged Games is based, and highest for The Philippines, Mexico, and Israel. The campaign also suggests that while Steamforged tries to factor VAT into its initial prices, the unpredictable nature of US tariffs means this might not be possible for that country.
Donald Trump’s tariffs which, while now reduced or paused for other countries, are still in place for China, and are expected to have a potentially devastating impact on the board game industry. Many big names in the industry have already released statements about their likely effects.
The Helldivers 2 board game will arrive in backers’ hands in 18 months’ time, in October 2026. The game is expected to have a retail release, but Steamforged states that not everything will be available, and the products will cost more when they hit store shelves.
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Source: Wargamer
