Cthulhu: Death May Die unites two of tabletop gaming’s biggest designers (Updated)

Update: Cthulhu: Death May Die has launched on Kickstarter.

Original Story: Cool Mini Or Not and Guillotine Games have announced Cthulhu: Death May Die by two of contemporary board gaming’s most popular, prolific designers: Eric M. Lang and Rob Daviau. In Cthulhu: Death May Die players will attempt not to stop an alien god of Lovecraft’s mythos from entering our reality, but summon it accidentally or on purpose in order to, in CMON’s own words, “shoot it in the face.” 

Daviau is known as the principal pioneer of the Legacy game, the popular genre of board games that permanently change as you play them. Lang, an improbably prolific and successful designer, is responsible for more games than is easy to list—suffice to say he designed at least one of the newest hotnesses in board games each year for the last five years.

Cthulhu: Death May Die will be a series of standalone episodes. Each episode will have a two-act structure focusing on the moments before the monster is summoned, then transitioning into a focus on killing the Great Old One. The twist is that no players can die in the first act without a loss, but any number can fall in combat with the alien god—as long as it dies. Few other gameplay details are available right now, but it has miniatures and dice-based resolution mechanics. Mitigating dice rolls and bad outcomes by playing around each character’s insanity is cited as a major mechanic.

Eric M. Lang is known for such games as Blood Rage, Chaos in the Old World, XCOM: The Board Game, Quarriors!, and Bloodborne: The Card Game, as well as this year’s new hotness: Rising Sun. He’s famous for making asymmetrically balanced, relatively approachable designs that make heavy use of miniatures.

Daviau is best known for legacy games like Risk: Legacy, SeaFall, Pandemic Legacy, and the upcoming Betrayal Legacy, as well as miniatures game Heroscape. Daviau is also part of classic games revival company Restoration Games, whose Fireball Island Kickstarter topped $2.8 million. 

Cthulhu: Death May Die will be funded in a Kickstarter to be launched “soon.” Given the production times involved with miniatures-heavy board games, it’s almost certainly a mid to late 2019 release.  

Contributor

Jon Bolding is a games writer and critic with an extensive background in strategy games. When he's not on his PC, he can be found playing every tabletop game under the sun.

Latest in Board Game
Two adventurers face off against a pair of undead scallywags in Frosthaven
X-Com creator Julian Gollop unexpectedly takes over sequel to sprawling board game adaptation, and you can try out the closed beta next week
A group of adventurers plans out their strategy on a table of maps and documents.
This Pathfinder Humble Bundle lets you level up your TTRPG library and donate to charity at the same time starting at just $5
Image of 2001 a space odyssey the board game
There's gonna be a 1 vs many board game based on 2001: A Space Odyssey
Image of GHQ, a board game by Kurt Vonnegut
Kurt Vonnegut's lost board game is back in stores after 70 years of obscurity and one sold-out print run
A dark elf with a spider-shaped staff, flanked by giant spiders who crawl over the statue of a dwarf king
WotC has published a handy guide to upgrading your D&D campaign to the 2024 rules
The wizard Mentor, his white hair illuminated by magical fire
HeroQuest: First Light turns the classic board game into something I could actually imagine kids playing today
Latest in News
An Enshrouded player in a recreation of Erebor from The Lord of the Rings
Kings under the Mountain! 33 Enshrouded players spent 10,000 hours to recreate this iconic location from The Lord of the Rings
A mech awakens.
Mecha Break developer is considering unlocking all mechs following open beta feedback
Lara Croft Unified Art
Tomb Raider developer Crystal Dynamics lays off 17 employees 'to better align our current business needs and the studio's future success'
A long bendy arm stealing money from people in a subway car
'You're a very long arm. You steal things. It's a comedy game,' explains developer of comedy game where you steal things with a very long arm
The heroes are attacked by monsters
Pillars of Eternity is getting turn-based combat to mark its 10th anniversary, and that means PC Gamer editors will soon be arguing about combat mechanics again
Image of Ronaldo from Fatal Fury: City of the Wolves trailer
It doesn't really make sense that soccer star Ronaldo is now a Fatal Fury character, but if you follow the money you can see how it happened