Gloomhaven
A cooperative dungeon crawl board game with legacy elements.
Gloomhaven is a cooperative board game for one to four players, created by Isaac Childres and released by Cephalofair Games in 2017. It is a campaign-driven dungeon crawl set in a fantasy world, featuring a branching narrative, 95 distinct scenarios, and 17 character classes. Critics have widely praised it, and many consider it one of the finest board games ever produced.
In gameplay, players work together through combat-based scenarios that adjust difficulty based on the number of participants. The campaign uses a legacy system: stickers are applied to the board and cards, and sealed envelopes are opened when players meet specific conditions. While often compared to role-playing games like Dungeons & Dragons, Gloomhaven incorporates mechanics more typical of modern eurogames. Characters and monsters move across hex tiles representing dungeons and cellars. Each turn, players select two cards from their hand, each with a top and bottom half, and combine the top of one with the bottom of the other to perform actions such as moving, healing, or attacking. Instead of dice, randomness comes from an "attack modifier deck." As the campaign progresses, characters grow stronger, gaining new abilities and improving their modifier decks.
Childres began developing Gloomhaven in 2013, focusing on production in 2015. He cited influences including *Final Fantasy*, *Diablo*, *Willow*, and *Labyrinth*, with *Dungeons & Dragons* as the primary inspiration. Illustrations were done by Alexandr Elichev, Josh T. McDowell, and Alvaro Nebot. The game first launched via a 2015 Kickstarter campaign that raised $386,104 from 4,904 backers. After strong early reviews, a second Kickstarter campaign in April 2017 raised about $4 million from over 40,000 backers, and the game reached retail later that year at a suggested price of $140.
The first expansion, *Gloomhaven: Forgotten Circles*, released in Q2 2019, adding a new class (the Aesther Diviner), 20 scenarios focused on that class, and new items and monsters. Its story takes place after the original campaign. *Gloomhaven: Jaws of the Lion*, a smaller standalone version, launched in July 2020 as a Target exclusive. It is aimed at more casual players, set before the original game, and features 25 scenarios including a five-scenario tutorial. Some components are compatible with the base game.
Quick Facts
- Subject Name
- Gloomhaven
- Designer
- Isaac Childres
- Publisher
- Cephalofair Games (2017)
- Illustrator
- Alexandr Elichev · Josh T. McDowell · Alvaro Nebot
- Players
- 1–4
- System
- Legacy
- Playing Time
- 90–115 minutes (per scenario)
- Random Chance
- Moderate
- Skills
- Strategy, tactics, logic
Facts from the source article.
Lore & Background
Gloomhaven was created by Isaac Childres with illustrations provided by Alexandr Elichev, Josh T. McDowell, and Alvaro Nebot. Childres was motivated to start creating Gloomhaven in 2013, and focused on producing in 2015. He credited multiple fantasy movies and films for inspiration such as Final Fantasy, Diablo, Willow, and Labyrinth, with Dungeons and Dragons being the main inspiration. The game was originally sold via a 2015 Kickstarter campaign which raised $386,104 from 4,904 backers. After strong early reviews, a second Kickstarter campaign was launched on April 4, 2017, and delivered in November 2017 which raised about $4 million from over 40,000 backers. The game was released shortly after that to retail for a suggested price of $140.
Reader's Guide
Gloomhaven has received critical acclaim, culminating in the game reaching the No. 1 spot as the top rated board game on leading website BoardGameGeek in 2017, where it stayed until February 2023. It also won six Golden Geek awards from the site, including for the best overall game of 2017, best strategy game, best cooperative game, most innovative game, best solo game, and best thematic game. Gaming website Geek & Sundry described Gloomhaven as 'a masterful design' and suggested 'it belongs in a museum.' Matt Thrower called it one of the best fantasy board games available, while noting that 'Gloomhaven was the critical hit of the year.' Ars Technica similarly praised the game's strategy, action system, gameplay and solitaire mode. Games Radar awarded the game five stars and dubbed it as 'the ultimate tabletop dungeon crawler,' and Board Games Land has described the game as 'truly a masterpiece.' The game was also commercially successful, and sold approximately 120,000 copies as of August 2018. The game's legacy includes multiple expansions and alternate editions, such as Gloomhaven: Forgotten Circles, Gloomhaven: Jaws of the Lion, a digital edition, and a second edition released in May 2025. A standalone sequel, Frosthaven, was launched in 2020 via Kickstarter, raising almost $13 million from over 83,000 backers.
Did You Know?
- Gloomhaven uses a deck of cards called the 'attack modifier deck' for randomization instead of dice.
- The game's first expansion, Gloomhaven: Forgotten Circles, was released in Q2 2019 and includes a new character class, the Aesther Diviner.
- Gloomhaven: Jaws of the Lion, a smaller standalone version, was released in July 2020 initially as a Target exclusive.
- A digital edition of Gloomhaven was released for Microsoft Windows on July 17, 2019, and for macOS on November 25, 2021.
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