Dark fantasy Frosthaven is a DM-free Dungeons And Dragons campaign in a box, and it’s coming to Steam this month

Frosthaven digital is launching in early access on Epic and Steam at the end of the month, July 31st. The dark fantasy RPG will be £33.50, and it’s Julian Gollop’s Snapshot Games handling the adaption. I had a short hands-on preview with the director back in March. Here’s a trailer.

If you’re unfamiliar with the series, Frosthaven and Gloomhaven (which has been treated to an excellent digital adaption) are some of the most elephantine and absurdly lavish of the big box ‘legacy’ board games. The idea behind a legacy game is, instead of whipping it out for the odd isolated session, you play a full campaign. There’s character progression with little bags to store your stuff in, stickers to put on the map to mark new locations you’ve discovered, and mystery boxes to be opened when the game tells you to. It feels like pure magic when pulled off by a board game, but you naturally lose some of that when everything’s being done digitally. What’s impressive with cards, tokens and stickers just becomes rote when performed by a computer.

Luckily, Gloomhaven and Frosthaven have clever and deep tactical combat that’s worth engaging with for its own sake, alongside story events with choice and consequence. I haven’t played the physical version of Frosthaven, but Gloomhaven was a biblical bollockcrusade to set up and tear down. I cannot promise you the PC version of Frosthaven will be good but, as with the Gloomhaven adaption, I can confidently say it will never require you to glue together an MDF token tray.

Where Frosthaven most differs from its prequel is in the town itself, where you’ll construct and upgrade buildings to unlock more equipment and events. Some features from Steam, a digital storefront and therefore immune to the psychic damage caused by the following irresponsible abundance of capital letters:

• UNIQUE CHARACTERS – Choose from six starting character classes—including the Banner Spear, Boneshaper, Drifter, Geminate, Blinkblade, and Deathwalker
• Additional classes will be unlocked as you progress your campaign
• Each class features its own unique abilities and playstyle to master
• DEEP, TACTICAL COMBAT – Engage in deep, tactical turn-based combat, testing your skills against an array of new enemies and formidable bosses
• Utilize an ability card system that requires careful planning to unleash devastating attacks, execute powerful combos, and try keeping your party members alive
• BUILD YOUR OUTPOST – Manage the Outpost, constructing and upgrading various buildings, unlocking new game features and mechanics
• A STUNNING WORLD TO EXPLORE – A stunning art style, highly detailed models and textures, and expressive animations all bring the world of Frosthaven to life.

There’s 130 quests in the full thing, and I’m assuming quests here means a full location with enemies, an objective, and likely a story event or two. There’ll be “35+ quests across Acts 1 and 2” in the early access build at launch. You can also play with up to three mates. Another reason you might be interested in Frosthaven is if you’re weary of ‘brutish’ fantasy races – Cephalofair hired good orc opinion haver James Mendez Hodes to help build on Frosthaven’s world, and what I’ve seen seems much richer for it. His writings have been over-simplified over the years in some well-meaning but ultimately clumsy “orcs are black people” cultural criticisms, but it’s great work from a great writer who, like me, just bloody loves a good orc.