Subastral, a new card game from the designers of Stellar, is landing this summer

Subastral is an upcoming card game wherein players research the Earth’s biomes to collect the resources they need to win, coming sometime in summer of this year.

The new title tasks two to five players to pick up the learned mantle of terrestrial researchers, gathering notes and finding out about eight various biomes on our planet - subtropical desert, savanna, tropical rainforest, chaparral, temperate grassland, temperate forest, taiga, and arctic tundra. Doing so nets them cards which can be used to complete sets and bring them one step closer to winning what seems to be brisk rounds of 15 to 30 minutes.

The announcement for Subastral states that the key twist in the game is timing: merely completing a set might earn you some points, but patience and a bit of preplanning could alter the course of the game. Players can also expect hand management elements, likely disallowing any one researcher to hoard their findings.

Renegade Games Studios - responsible for deckbuilding game Clank! and satisfying strategy title Paladins of the West Kingdom - will be publishing this game, which comes from the design team of Matt Riddle and Ben Pinchback. The pair recently worked together on another Renegade joint - Stellar - that focused on astral bodies rather than terra firma. Released in 2020, Stellar used card mechanics to build a tableau of celestial objects seen through a telescope.

The only provided art comes from a box preview, but the publisher announced that Beth Sobel will be illustrating. She is best known for her work on Wingspan and Viticulture but also worked on Calico and Cascadia.

Riddle stated in a comment on Twitter that Subastral will not be launching a Kickstarter campaign, but will instead be heading straight to print later this year. Pre-orders are now open on Renegade’s official site.