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A Fullmetal Alchemist board game based on Brotherhood anime hits Japan in March 2022

Square Enix will release The Promised Day as part of the popular anime’s 20th anniversary celebration.

Amid all the announcements and celebration of Fullmetal Alchemist’s 20th anniversary, news of a tabletop adaptation almost slipped by unnoticed. The cooperative board game Promised Day - based on a later episode of the Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood anime - is already available to pre-order in Japan ahead of a March 26th release date.

Initially reported by Silicon Era, Fullmetal Alchemist: The Promised Day allows up to four players to band together in an attempt to stop series antagonist Father from activating his complex and centuries-spanning plot to sacrifice an entire country’s population in his quest for some supernatural truth. Standing against him are the Elric Brothers - Ed and Al - and the compatriots they have managed to gather throughout their journey.

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Sessions run a little less than an hour and take place on a board representing the transmutation circle running throughout Central City. Players will fight their way to its core, the path to which is chock full of mindless puppet soldiers, the Homunculi children of Father and other enemies, such as Solf J. Kimblee.

Further details on how the board game plays are sparse. The Japanese web store hosting includes photos and a list of included components but not much more. The 147 included cards and player boards all feature art from the Brotherhood anime, which ran from 2009 to 2010 in Japan and was animated by Studio Bones. This was the second iteration of the anime, the first of which diverged in its second half after eclipsing Hiromu Arakawa’s manga schedule.

Fullmetal Alchemist: The Promised Day is currently available for pre-order for 4,620 yen (£29/$41) and currently claims to be releasing on March 26th, 2022. The included rulebook will be available in four languages upon release - Japanese, English, French and German - but Square Enix has provided no information about when players and fans can expect an international release or regionalised version.

An English Fullmetal Alchemist trading card game was released in 2005, published by Joyride Entertainment and Press Pass, Inc., which is apparently wholly separate from the Japanese subtitled Alchemic Card Battle TCG that was released a year prior. This seems to be the only official thrust to bring the property to the tabletop since those titles. Dicebreaker has reached out to Square Enix for more information.

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Chase Carter

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Chase is a freelance journalist and media critic. He enjoys the company of his two cats and always wants to hear more about that thing you love. Follow him on Twitter for photos of said cats and retweeted opinions from smarter folks.

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