Gloomhaven sequel Frosthaven delays Kickstarter launch as result of COVID-19

Frosthaven, the sequel expansion upcoming board game to Gloomhaven, has seen its Kickstarter campaign postponed in response to “recent events”.

Publisher Cephalofair Games announced that the Frosthaven Kickstarter campaign will now go live on March 31st - a week after the initially intended launch date. The crowdfunding campaign will run for a month.

The delay has been attributed to the upheaval caused by the current COVID-19 pandemic, with Cephalofair highlighting the impact that school closures and the transition to remote working has had on its employees. The publisher said that delaying the launch of Frosthaven would ensure that its staff are prepared and the Kickstarter campaign goes as smoothly as possible.

The announcement also addressed the possible impact that the worldwide Coronavirus crisis might have had on Kickstarter backers, confirming that pledges of $1 would provide people with access to the pledge manager - thereby enabling them to add to or change their pledge to the full game after the campaign’s end date if they want to.

Set in the northern reaches of the Gloomhaven world, Frosthaven will have players assuming the roles of mercenaries protecting a lone outpost against monsters - such as the ferocious Algox - all the while braving the harshness of the icy tundra around them.

The board game will reportedly feature 16 new characters, 25 new enemies and over a hundred new scenarios, and can be played as a standalone title or combined with the original Gloomhaven as a big-box expansion.

Frosthaven is designed by Isaac Childres, who created the original Gloomhaven - one of the best board games released in recent years - and is currently working on upcoming board game Return to Dark Tower, which raised over $4 million during its own Kickstarter.

Cephalofair, the publisher behind Frosthaven and Gloomhaven, previously released Forge War, a fantasy board game about a group of blacksmiths forging weapons for an epic battle, which was also designed by Childres.

Originally released in 2017, Gloomhaven is a co-op board game in which players become adventurers looking to explore mysterious dungeons in search of loot. Facing off against beasts and rival adventurers, players have to work together to coordinate their special abilities and defeat their enemies - before it’s too late.

The legacy board game has received several small expansions, as well as a standalone prequel in the form of board game Founders of Gloomhaven that sees players constructing the titular city.

In the wake of Frosthaven’s delay, Cephalofair announced that it would release a new ‘community driven’ scenario for Gloomhaven called The Blacksmith and the Bear on March 24th.