In 2024, UK-based game maker Steamforged Games (SFG) purchased the miniature wargame Warmachine, reviving the ailing game’s fortunes and steadily pivoting its business operations to make Warmachine the core of everything it does. But, in the last few months, even as Warmachine flourishes, official updates and communications on several of SFG’s as yet unfulfilled board game crowdfunding campaigns have slowed significantly. It’s led growing numbers of commenters to complain they’re being ignored, with no communication from Steamforged about when they might get their pledge rewards, leaving some to worry that they’re being abandoned entirely.
At the start of June, news emerged that Steamforged had made staff in various teams redundant, canning plans to launch any future board game crowdfunding campaigns and putting its whole back into Warmachine. The question that backers of unfulfilled crowdfunding campaigns want answered is: has the company still got the people in place to bring those games to completion?
I’ve contacted the team to ask about the games’ progress, and for their comments on the drastic slowdown in campaign updates – but at press time I’ve had no response. We’ll update this story when SFG gets back to us. In the meantime, though, reviewing the latest updates and comms on its nine outstanding board game campaigns does show the firm giving backers less information, less often, since early 2026.
Currently, the company has four fully-funded board game projects for which it’s still developing the game and product, and five where development work is complete, but printing or shipping some or all of the product isn’t. The campaigns nearing completion received regular monthly updates in 2025, but in 2026 these have become irregular,
The last update to the crowdfunding campaigns for still-to-be-delivered projects Euthia: Cruel Frost, Horizon Forbidden West: Seeds of Rebellion, Monster Hunter World Iceborne, and Hearts of Iron all came on July 29. In each case the update was an apology for the lack of substantive information about when copies would be delivered, stating that the team was waiting for key information from partners.
There are a lot of customer comments on those updates, and I’ve not been able to find any responses from Steamforged. In the general comments areas for those crowdfunding campaigns, the only comment from Steamforged I’ve been able to find in the last six months was in the Iceborne Kickstarter in June, apologizing for the lack of a substantive update.
In December 2025 Steamforged launched a dedicated Warmachine community Discord, with staff moving from the studio’s original community Discord to there. The last comment I can find by a member of staff in the old Discord was senior designer Jamie Perkins on July 31, explaining that he and his team had long since completed their work on Monster Hunter World: Iceborne, saying “the folks who can help are not active in the Discord server or the Facebook group. Information will only be shared by those folks on the official campaign page where everyone will be able to see it”.
Without moderation, we get to see the worries and angers from the community writ large: fears that projects will never be delivered, and frustration at the lack of communication. On September 1 the UK’s registrar for companies published a notice that Steamforged was on track to be dissolved as a company. SFG stated that this was a purely administrative issue caused by late submission of financial reports, and the registrar cancelled the notice on September 5. But in those four days the news spread like wildfire through the comment threads on the unfulfilled Kickstarters, apparently reflecting a community ready to believe that the firm was in big trouble.
One high profile project is now being delivered to fans. On September 9, Steamforged posted an update to the Gamefound page for 6 Siege: The Board Game, stating that copies in China, Australia, and New Zealand were shipping to backers; US and UK copies had arrived in each country, and address confirmation emails were being sent to backers; the vessel containing EU copies had docked but not yet unloaded; and for “all other regions, pledges are in transit and we expect fulfilment to begin at the end of this month or in October “.
Elden Ring: Rot and Sorcery, Bardsung – Tale of the Forsaken Glade, are both still in development, and their last updates came in June. Helldivers 2: The Board Game had an update in August, and Terra Mystica: Definitive Edition received an update on September 8.
Board game fulfilment is a notoriously slow process. But with the collapse of prominent crowdfunding studios such as Mythic Games and CMON, customers have a lower tolerance than ever for uncertainty.
Silence from Steamforged may reflect the remaining board game staff putting their now reduced capacity into working on games rather than talking about them, while Steamforged’s comms staff are completely occupied with Warmachine. Or the most apocalyptic fears of the community could be true. I’ve asked Steamforged for an update about the actual situation, and will inform you when I receive one.
For a recent commentary on how split focus can cause delays and miscommunication for crowdfunding campaigns, check out my interview with Dave Nordquist from MiniWarGaming about the Ravaged Star crowdfunding campaign.
Source: Wargamer
