Catan expansions Seafarers and Cities & Knights will make the $400 jump to 3D
And prehistoric Settlers of the Stone Age will reboot as Catan – Dawn of Humankind.
Fans of Catan will enjoy a bumper crop year, even if it comes at the cost of their wallet. The classic tile-based board game is planning to add two expansions - Seafarers and Cities & Knights - to the premium Catan 3D line, whilst Settlers of the Stone Age will be rebooted and rebranded as Catan – Dawn of Humankind later this year.
Catan 3D previously shocked our collective bank accounts when the premium version of Catan Studio’s titular board game announced a $300 price tag for tiles, figures and pieces originally sculpted by the title’s designer, Klaus Teuber, for 2005’s limited run of The Settlers of Catan Collector’s Edition. Like its predecessor the 3D version is all hand painted, from roads to robbers, and many of the components sport an antiqued finish.
Two popular Catan expansions will now join the base game in premium quality runs. Both Seafarers and Cities & Knights, which Catan Studio claims in a press release are two of their most popular sellers, will eventually make their way into 3D. Seafarers expands the gameplay into the ocean surrounding the main continent, allowing players to access island tiles with additional resources and goals only if they are able to construct and helm ships from the mainland. In comparison, Cities & Knights focuses inward by introducing systems for improving cities’ infrastructure and technologies at the cost of commodities. There’s also invading marauders, forcing players to form temporary alliances of necessity to survive the deadly onslaught.
Both expansions will ship in “one big, beautiful box” containing 363 individual pieces that retail for a whopping US$399.99. That’s more than the price of Catan 3D’s base game, which is required to play either expansion. For those lucky or wealthy enough, Seafarers and Cities & Knights can be played separately or combined for a much more complex experience and what will probably be a beautiful display of hand-painted, hex-tile terrain. An exact release date for the two expansions was not provided, and Dicebreaker has reached out for more information.
Anyone who balked at the cost of Catan 3D can instead set their sights on a rebooted version that sends players deep into the past. Settlers of the Stone Age first released in 2002 and took the standard Catan experience back to the Stone Age. Now, Teuber has joined forces with his son, Benjamin, to design the retooled and renamed Catan – Dawn of Humankind.
The original game involved blazing migration routes across a continent alongside developing the skills necessary for surviving the journey to a distant home. How much of that will survive in this upcoming version isn’t yet clear, as the press release says it “introduces new mechanics and strategies set in the Pleistocene epoch.” Given the fresh moniker and product shots, expect the two Teubers to accomplish more than a simple revamping of components. Catan – Dawn of Humankind launches in the US, Canada, the UK and Australia on October 1st.
Catan Studio will be hosting the 2022 CATAN World Championship in Valetta, Malta this year to decide who amongst fans is the most dedicated shepherd or most enterprising road-builder. National championship winners from across the world will gather from November 18th through the 20th for a series of matches to decide who will take home an honest to goodness trophy.
If all this Catan news has you yearning to learn how to play, check out Dicebreaker’s guide to what many consider the best gateway into the board gaming hobby. Except for Alex, who argues plenty more deserving titles have arrived in the two decades since Catan’s first release. Hungry for food instead of competition? It turns out Catan will receive its very own themed cookbook.