Dark Souls board game developer Steamforged Games announces Tomb of Giants and Painted World of Ariamis, starring Gravelord Nito and Crossbreed Priscilla

Steamforged Games, developer and publisher of Dark Souls: The Board Game, announced two new standalone expansions for the game on August 24. Tomb of Giants and Painted World of Ariamis are both set to release in November, and Steamforged CCO and co-founder Mat Hart says they’ll include “ a community-driven revitalisation of the rules”.

The original Dark Souls board game aims to faithfully recreate the feeling of playing the infamously punishing Dark Souls videogame series. Gameplay revolves around slaying challenging enemies, levelling up with your newly collected souls at a bonfire, and slaying these foes again when the bonfire brings them back to life – all before taking on a big boss fight. Essentially, the game expects you to die, die, and die again.

The Dark Souls board game and its existing expansions recreate many of the videogames’ settings and characters, and these new boxes are no different. Tomb of Giants and Painted World of Ariamis both take their name directly from a location in the first Dark Souls game. Steamforged says the sets will introduce Gravelord Nito and Crossbreed Priscilla to the game’s miniatures roster, and more of the Dark Souls videogame cast can be spotted in the images below.

Hart says the games being standalone will “make them highly accessible to new players” and speculates the feedback-driven rule changes “will be popular with long-standing fans”. “No other purchase is necessary for a full campaign”, Steamforged says in a press release from Wednesday. However, the sets are also “fully backwards compatible” with the original Dark Souls board game, which was first launched on Kickstarter in 2016.

Steamforged has an established background in adapting videogames into tabletop products. In addition to Dark Souls: The Board Game, it’s also responsible for producing Dark Souls: The Card Game and Dark Souls: The Roleplaying Game. Its Runescape board game also arrived on Kickstarter in May, and it’s currently accepting late pledges.

The Dark Souls board game isn’t for the faint of heart – check out some of the best board games for adults if you’re looking for other mature tabletop gaming experiences. Or, if you’re after the cream of the crop, we’ve got a guide to the very best board games around.

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Mollie's DnD characters often seem more at home in her favourite board game, Betrayal at House on the Hill. Spook and storyteller, she loves poetry as much as a good TTRPG. (She/her)