Gloomhaven sequel Frosthaven is now the biggest board game Kickstarter of all time
With nearly $13m raised and over 80,000 backers.
Frosthaven, the follow-up to Gloomhaven, has become the highest-funded tabletop Kickstarter to date, raising almost $13 million during its month-long crowdfunding campaign.
Isaac Childres’ upcoming board game racked up $12,969,608 from over 83,000 backers during its Kickstarter campaign, surpassing the previous tabletop project record held by Kingdom Death: Monster 1.5. The dungeon-crawling board game raised $12,393,139 during its Kickstarter at the beginning of 2017, but with far fewer backers - just over 19,000. Frosthaven’s core box required a pledge of at least $100, while the standalone version of Kingdom Death: Monster 1.5 cost twice that amount. (Neither game included shipping.)
The Frosthaven Kickstarter campaign overtook that of Kingdom Death: Monster 1.5 in its final hours, leading to a post acknowledging the achievement from the latter game’s creator Adam Poots congratulating Childres and asking to “set a new record for us to beat next time”.
The impressive figures mean Frosthaven has also become the third highest-funded Kickstarter project of all time behind the Coolest Cooler and Pebble Time smartwatch, which raised $13.3m and $20.3m respectively. However, Frosthaven had more backers than either of those projects.
Frosthaven is a standalone sequel to Childres’ epic dungeon-crawler Gloomhaven, which raised $386,000 from fewer than 5,000 backers in 2015. Following its release in 2017, Gloomhaven was widely acclaimed for its combination of card-driven combat, legacy board game elements - including permanent changes to the board through stickers and unlockable characters - and roleplaying-lite storytelling across a campaign spanning almost 100 individual scenarios and dozens of hours.
Frosthaven’s gameplay is similar to that of its co-op board game predecessor, with players taking control of characters and battling monsters in a variety of dungeons. The upcoming board game introduces a new loot system and the ability to rebuild the titular town during the campaign, unlocking further items, characters and other benefits. The game’s story takes place over two seasons, with the frozen winter bringing tougher enemies and other challenges compared to the warmer summer.
Frosthaven is due to arrive with backers in March 2021, followed by a retail release in the future.