With the board game "Hell: Legends", the small publisher Hodari Spiele has a hellishly hot iron in the fire. The idea was inspired by no less an original than the computer game Diablo. The author David Rimbach even picked out the two best parts from Blizzard's revolutionary hack'n'slash series.
There are many dungeon crawlers: wandering through dark dungeons, slaughtering monsters and bagging loads of loot is an idea that is as simple as it is brilliant. HeroQuest popularized this concept in the board game sector at the end of the 1997s, and in XNUMX Blizzard North made monster slaughtering acceptable to a mass audience - the two games are not directly related. The video game developers used titles such as NetHack and Moria as a template, and relied on ideas from The Lord of the Rings and Might and Magic. And yet HeroQuest and Diablo have something in common: both games had enormous influences on the genres. They were in their infancy at the time, but gradually became more and more popular.
Decades-old ideas still fresh
HeroQuest is now available in a new edition published in 2021, Diablo, which was launched not so long ago with the fourth part, was only recently given its first expansion. Both games stand the test of time because the game concepts behind them are timeless. Given the increasingly popular adaptations, it is all the more surprising that there are hardly any entries for Diablo in the board game world. Yes, Glass Cannon Unplugged will release a board game based on Diablo next year and at the turn of the millennium there was also a Dungeons and Dragons spin-off of Diablo 2, but otherwise publishers avoid the brand like the Prince of Hell avoids the divine light.
If a real Diablo board game is rare, then the fans themselves have to sort it out. With the author David Rimbach from Hodari Spiele, a scene expert is now starting an attempt next year: "Hell: Legends", the title of the board game, is a cooperative dungeon crawler board game for 1 to 4 players, which is to be financed next year via crowdfunding on Gamefound. Over 2.000 fans are already following the campaign - and given the popular template, success seems certain.
David Rimbach's work may lack a big name, but the author used the computer games Diablo 1 and Diablo 2 as inspiration, as he revealed in a discussion at SPIEL'24 in Essen. He had built a first prototype of the board game - and it was of good quality. "I already play Hell: Legends. It has to look good," says Rimbach. If you take a look at the game and don't know the title, Diablo immediately springs to mind: "The template is definitely recognizable," says the author, who previously released games such as Wutaki and, more recently, Galaxy Postman. The latter has long been out of print.
The board game "Hell: Legends" is aimed primarily at adult players and, of course, Diablo fans, explains David Rimbach. Anyone who likes character progression and dungeon adventures could "have a lot of fun" with the game. A particular focus is on the skills system - this is also based on the Diablo talent trees. In addition to the character board and the loot or equipment cards, "Hell: Legends" includes a tableau on which individual skills - from spells to sword attacks - are arranged. This invites experimentation, as David Rimbach explains. "You're not really limited in this." For example, you can have a barbarian cast spells or vice versa. This constantly results in new combinations that break up the rather rigid class system that we know from Diablo.
In fact, the board game is supposed to focus on the gameplay and not necessarily the background story. "There is a story, of course," says Rimbach. "But everything is built around a legacy element." You try out scenarios of different difficulty levels, tinker with your character, collect equipment and unlock new skills, become stronger and ultimately try to complete new attempts more successfully after a failure.
The focus is not on an epic campaign, but primarily on so-called "one shots". Whether a small, connected campaign will be added later has "not yet been decided". David Rimbach explains that this still needs to be tested. The idea is not off the table, but the focus is "basically set". Hell: Legends can therefore still change before the final board game, including the available game modes. The prototype presented at the Essen trade fair was "not the most up-to-date", explains Rimbach. Everything just wasn't finished on time.
Hell: Legends also builds a bridge to video games. There will be a web app that accompanies players on their adventures. But it won't be absolutely necessary.
In the first quarter of 2025, the Crowdfunding campaign for Hell: Legends on Gamefound will be launched. How high is the funding target likely to be? "We still have to see. It's too early to make a final decision," says Rimbach. The author of this martial board game with a strong focus on hack'n'slay and plenty of blood on the tokens actually started out very differently in the author scene: "Grab the Boobs" was a simple game that was released in 2017 as a one-man project and based on a spontaneous idea.
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