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An unannounced Metal Gear Solid board game has apparently leaked via box art reveal

Psycho Mantis Battle surfaces following cancellation of Specter Ops creator’s board game adaptation.

Metal Gear Solid: Psycho Mantis Battle box art
Image credit: Art Potions

Less than two months after the cancellation of Metal Gear Solid: The Board Game, another, otherwise unannounced, tabletop adaption of the video game series has seemingly been unearthed.

Reddit user MrBlubBlub spotted the box artwork for a title called Metal Gear Solid: Psycho Mantis Battle on a website for a company called Art Potions, co-founded by illustrators Julián Tunni and Ariel Zajac.

Art Potions’ webpage for Metal Gear Solid: Psycho Mantis Battle holds no information regarding the game’s plot - and how it relates to the video game franchise, beyond its name-checking of the mind-reading boss character from the original PlayStation game - nor its gameplay.

Adam B Metal and Pete Walsh - who departed from IDW Games earlier this year - are the two co-designers listed on the front of the box, with the game being attributed to publisher IDW Games, which had reportedly been behind the cancellation of Metal Gear Solid: The Board Game late last year.

Cover image for YouTube video

According to designer Emerson Matsuuchi, IDW Games had decided to cease production on the video game board game in December 2020 due to undisclosed reasons. In a post on BoardGameGeek, Matsuuchi confirmed that they had acquired the rights to the design for Metal Gear Solid: The Board Game, but not the licensing needed to publicly release the title. Matsuuchi is now working alongside their publishing studio - Nazca Games - to find a way to make the game available to players. Matsuuchi previously designed hidden-movement stealth game Specter Ops, which was partially inspired by the Metal Gear Solid series.

Box art for the now-cancelled Super Bomberman R: Blast Tactics - a board game inspired by the classic retro series of video games - has also been found on the Art Potions website. In a tweet posted last month by the title’s creator, Sean McDonald, it was confirmed that the game had been cancelled by IDW in response to “unforeseen issues”. McDonald also referenced the announcement made by Matsuuchi regarding the cancellation of Metal Gear Solid: The Board Game, calling it the “writing on the wall”.

Soon afterwards, McDonald posted on a Reddit forum that a mod for Super Bomberman R: Blast Tactics had been created for the online platform Tabletop Simulator. The mod was allegedly based on McDonald’s own original design, as well as a collection of prototype graphics and assets that they had provided to the mod creator.

Super Bomberman R Blast Tactics box art Art Potions
Image credit: Art Potions

Konami, a Japanese video game publisher also known for releasing the Silent Hill series of horror titles, is the company that owns the licensing rights for both the Metal Gear Solid and Super Bomberman franchises. The studio has not yet commented on the cancellation of either tabletop adaptations, nor confirmed the existence of Metal Gear Solid: Psycho Mantis Battle.

Dicebreaker has reached out to IDW Games for comment and will update this story accordingly.

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Super Bomberman R: Blast Tactics

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About the Author
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Alex Meehan

Senior Staff Writer

After writing for Kotaku UK, Waypoint and Official Xbox Magazine, Alex became a member of the Dicebreaker editorial family. Having been producing news, features, previews and opinion pieces for Dicebreaker for the past three years, Alex has had plenty of opportunity to indulge in her love of meaty strategy board games and gothic RPGS. Besides writing, Alex appears in Dicebreaker’s D&D actual play series Storybreakers and haunts the occasional stream on the Dicebreaker YouTube channel.

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