Love Letter heads to the Avengers universe in Marvel spin-off Infinity Gauntlet

Search the universe for the six Infinity Stones as Thanos or assemble the Avengers to stop him in Infinity Gauntlet: A Love Letter Game, the next entry in the classic party board game series.

Unlike the free-for-all of past Love Letter instalments, Infinity Gauntlet is a one-versus-many game. In the upcoming board game, one player controlling Thanos faces a team of up to five other players, with the two sides racing to complete their respective goals first. The superhero players want to deplete Thanos’s lifebar to zero, while Thanos is aiming to successfully gather all six of the Infinity Stones and perform that iconic world-ending snap.

The player controlling Thanos starts with a hand of two cards, and can draw another card from their unique Thanos deck every turn. Meanwhile, the hero players begin the game with just one card each - as in normal Love Letter - and can draw a single card from a shared hero deck to their hands on their respective turns. Either way, all players must play and activate one card from their hand every turn, regardless of which side they’re on.

The hero deck is filled with cards featuring familiar Marvel characters such as Spider-Man, Black Widow and the Hulk, who can help the hero team to defeat Thanos’ various cards and whittle his health down. By comparison, Thanos’ deck holds minion cards to keep the hero players at bay - such as Ebony Maw - as well as the vital Infinity Stone cards the player needs to win the game.

Similar to cards in past Love Letter games, any player can choose to initiate a fight on their turn by playing an appropriate card, which allows the player to compare one of their cards with one of their opponents. Whoever has the highest power rating on their card is declared the winner of the fight and forces the other to discard the losing card.

Each Infinity Stone gives the player controlling Thanos powerful abilities when played, such as the Soul Stone, which forces a chosen hero player holding a card numbered 3 or higher to discard that card. Any defeated cards count as a life point lost, so hero players will need to be careful to manage their hand in order to avoid Thanos’ more devastating abilities.

However, using their individual knowledge - by viewing Thanos’ hand or seeing which hero cards are coming up - public knowledge and power tokens, which increase the strength of cards when fighting, the hero team can work together to overcome the serial snapper.

The original Love Letter, which was designed by Seiji Kanai, has all its players competing against one another to gain the favour of a kingdom’s princess by drawing and playing a card each turn - with the winner of each round being whoever holds the highest numbered card.

Designer Alexandar Ortloff adapted Kanai’s original gameplay for Infinity Gauntlet: A Love Letter Game, as well as the 2019 second edition of classic Love Letter, which increased the player count from four to six.

Other iterations of Love Letter include a horror board game version based on the Cthulhu mythos called Lovecraft Letter and Love Letter: Batman, which featured superheroes and villains from the beloved DC comic books.

Infinity Gauntlet: A Love Letter Game is set to be released sometime this summer with a $14.99 (£11) price tag.