Star Wars Villainous board game revealed. Which bad guy will you play?

Ravensburger is finally releasing Disney Villainous expansion, an award-winning boardgame series. Star Wars Villainous: Power of the Dark Side Arrives in August and includes Darth Vader and Kylo Ren as well as Asajj Ventress and General Grievous.

Polygon sat down with the Ravensburger production team to discuss the history of the franchise, and the bold step it’s taking into a galaxy far, far away.

In 2018, the unveiling was first. Disney Villainous – The Worst Takes AllThe world of tabletop gaming was flipped when it allowed players to play the role of evildoers in classic Disney animations. Prospero Hall, now part of Funko Games, created the initial title and it included Maleficent.Beauty and the Sleeping BeautyUrsulaThe Little MermaidJafar,AladdinPrince John (Robin Hood), Queen of Hearts (Alice in WonderlandCaptain Hook (Peter Pan). There was something for every kind of classic Disney animation fan — including compelling, card-based gameplay and a hefty dose of screw-your-neighbor-style competition. Villainous Ravensburger has now published series in international editions.

This franchise is now a mainstay in big-box retail gaming. It can be found prominently at Target, Walmart, and even on local shelves. It has sold almost three million copies around the world, according to the company. The secret of its success is its accessibility.

The games are family-friendly, but not violent. (“We don’t use the ‘K’ word,” chides international marketing manager Cassidy Werner.) It is easy to read the iconography and it is modern and clean. Most importantly, every villain comes with its own cheat sheet — a Villain Guide that details exactly how they can be played to win.

Image: Ravensburger and Lucasfilm Ltd.

Star Wars Villainous will be the first in what is now the franchise’s third game system, the first two being Disney Villainous and Marvel Villainous. Characters aren’t compatible between the three systems, so no putting Thanos up against Hades or Darth Vader for instance. That doesn’t mean that they aren’t compatible. Star Wars Villainous’ new mechanics are also unique and distinct.

Star Wars VillainousEach player will have Ambition to use for fuelling their actions. This, together with Fate will provide them the necessary tools to achieve their goals. Darth Vader, of course, is trying to lure Luke Skywalker into the dark side. Grievous is busy collecting lightsabers. Asajj Ventress needs to finish three of five randomly selected missions. Moff Gideon is there, too. He’s trying to take Grogu hostage and do vile experiments.

Image by Ravensburger and Lucasfilm Ltd

Image: Ravensburger & Lucasfilm

To slow each other down, players will have access to vehicles — a franchise first. Ambition’s vehicles can be used to give the villains more powerful and innovative moves. In-fiction heroes will fly vehicles that have been brought to play with Fate in an effort to take down the bad guys.

There will be many images taken directly from Star Wars cartoons and movies in the final product. Jenny Webb, Ravensburger’s project manager, said that working with Lucasfilm was an unforgettable experience. She says she was continually floored by the company’s breadth of knowledge about the spacefaring franchise.

“We’re going through little art sketches for the cards,” Webb said, “and of course — this won’t be a surprise — but we have R2-D2 in there at some point. It was also available in English. [our Lucasfilm contact] looked at it and he was like, ‘No. No, that’s, that’s Episode IVGet R2 and everything you want Episode VITo make the card work, you will need R2. […] The reason I’m calling you out on that is you’re going to get a hardcore Star Wars fan, and they will criticize you if that’s wrong.’ So I really felt like we had a solid partnership with Lucasfilm.”

Ravensburger calls the player pawns movers. They are one of the most interesting elements of Villainous. The movers represent each enemy’s location in the universe. They also indicate the powers that were available during previous rounds, as well as which ones are still available. Every box of franchise history will be a new one. Star Wars VillainousEach mover will have a slightly different configuration. Each model will look slightly different due to a new manufacturing process.

Image by Ravensburger and Lucasfilm Ltd

“From a technical perspective,” said Webb, “these use a specific colored powder that’s infused into the base color, and then swirled around. Then they kind of bloom a little bit so we get this very cool kind of galactic feel.” Like other pawns in the Villainous franchise, all of the movers in this new game will be translucent and cast a colored light across the table during play. But when you hold them up to the light they will shimmer with a “kind of universe effect,” Webb said.

“Sometimes this blooming does take the color out to the edge of the surface,” Webb said, “so you’ll see that really sharp color pop through on the surface, and then it’ll recede as it goes in.”

It should result in a series of massive, sculptural pieces of game that are fitting into the Star Wars universe.

Star Wars Villainous – Power of the Dark Side The retail price is $39.99 You can play the final game with up to 2 players. Each villain takes approximately 20 minutes. It will be available online and at large-box retailers starting in the summer.