Many tabletop gamers often have a Grail Game: a usually long out-of-print and hard-to-obtain gaming relic that they drool over every time they see it tantalisingly out of reach online. They view owners of such treasures with envy and a certain amount of low-level jealous hatred.
Okay, maybe I made up that last bit. Slightly. But the fact remains that for a surprising number of gamers the old Avalon Hill classic Dune, based on the cult classic book series by Frank Herbert, remains at the top of many a wish list.
I say “surprising” as the game was made in the 1970s before many of these drooling desperadoes were out of diapers (although it has to be said that most of the drooling comes from the older, more nostalgic set).
Plus it was re-released already in 2012 in the form of Rex: Final Days Of An Empire from Fantasy Flight Games, albeit re-branded to get around the aggressively protective Herbert estate and their vociferous lawyers.
However, such is the draw of the original IP, only Arrakis, Fremen and Sand Worms will do, and the faithful have been wanting the Spice to flow back onto our tabletops again for quite some years. And soon the wait will be over.
It was in 2018 that murmurs in the community hinted that long-time producer of top-quality games based on film/TV licences (usually a field mired with substandard dross) Gale Force 9 (GF9) were rebooting the old classic.
The new was of course received with delight by those who had waited much of their lives for such an event (mainly delighted they didn’t have to forfeit a kidney for a 1979 original from eBay.)
Somehow Joe LeFavi of Genuine Entertainment, who will manage the Dune license for GF9, brokered the deal with the previously reluctant Herbert Properties LLC, run by the Herbert family.
GF9 have only made minor tweaks to streamline the rules and brushed up the artwork, but the game will be on the whole very faithful to the original.
It also appears to be almost a carbon copy of the now famous “Ilya” fan-made version of the game, so let’s hope the designer who gave us that fantastic print-n-play alternative to the 1979 original sees some dues from the new version.
The 2-6 player epic is due for release August 24th 2019 at a very reasonable $50USD. If GF9’s other licenced titles, like Sons of Anarchy: Men of Mayhem and Star Trek: Ascendency are anything to go by, the community should be in for a treat.
