Battles of Westeros Officially Announced
Fantasy Flight Games has officially announced their new game Battles of Westeros.
In news articles on their website, FGG announce the new upcoming release and Christian Petersen, CEO of FFG, answers some questions about the game. The official minisite has also been launched.
The interview gives us some very interesting insights into what is happening with BattleLore at FFG, and possibly, what happened with it at Days of Wonder. Apparently, due to various factors, the original game can no longer be produced at an affordable pricepoint. This is pure speculation, but I think we will see ‘classic’ BattleLore re-released in a completely new format at some time in the future—perhaps a core game with far smaller armies, and then small army packs as expansions.
After reading the information available so far, I must admit I’m in two minds about this new release. Firstly, it looks like a great game, and I have no doubt that I will buy it and enjoy it. But I am confused about it being branded a BattleLore game. Petersen himself admits that they “have some slight similarities” but are “different games”; that “we acquired BattleLore to be our core brand for medieval tactical warfare games … the BattleLore name is not necessarily tied to Richard’s Command and Colors system”; and “the key value to FFG was the BattleLore brand.”
Well, this is new … and very confusing to BattleLore players and non-BattleLore players alike.
According to Petersen, BattleLore has “an eclectic mix of a fantasy and historic medieval theme that FFG has never been comfortable with”, and that Battles of Westeros is a non-magic, gritty medieval game that is more in line with their vision.
Petersen goes on to say that “classic BattleLore” will continue to be supported. This is great news, but again, confusing to the game-buying public that isn’t keeping track of these developments by visiting the website and reading the articles. It seems to be completely reasonable for someone who sees a game on the shelf branded ‘A BattleLore Game’ to expect that it will be compatible with the game BattleLore, does it not? And doesn’t it seem strange that a game specifically targeted as not including magic is branded with a name—and a logo—that specifically emphasises ‘Lore’, or magic?
Again, I think the new game looks great and I will most likely buy it. But if it’s not BattleLore, why brand it BattleLore? Why change the name BattleLore into a generic brand name, when there is already a specific game system by that name? A specific game system that will now be rather clunkily referred to as ‘classic’ BattleLore?
I can see what FFG are trying to do—creating a generic brand for a game series—and no doubt when all the dust settles and time has passed, the fan base will accept that BattleLore is now a brand name and not a particular game system.
Personally, I don’t expend energy worrying too much about these matters—there’ll always be plenty of quality games to play from FFG, and I have enough gaming goodness to happily fill my available hours. But it seems a shame that the uniqueness—the ‘eclectic mix’, if you will—of the BattleLore game has been diluted in this way.
What do you think? I’d be interested to hear your opinion. And should this website cover all the ‘BattleLore’ releases from FFG, or just ‘classic BattleLore’?