Terra Mystica: Age of Innovation publisher says standalone board game will be “Terra Mystica on steroids”

Fans of Terra Mystica who have been patiently awaiting news on the long-promised next board game in that series will need to wait until at least 2023, according to new information out of last weekend’s Essen Spiel 2022.

A representative with board game publisher Capstone Games told Dicebreaker during the annual trade show that Terra Mystica: Age of Innovation is still coming, though the release date has been pushed into 2023.

The standalone upcoming board game will build on the meaty, tactical gameplay of its original namesake, resulting in what the representative characterised as “Terra Mystica on steroids”. Gameplay should feel heavier than Terra Mystica and its introductory sibling, Terra Nova, instead falling closer to 2017’s sci-fi spin-off Gaia Project in terms of rules complexity.

For those unfamiliar with Jens Drögemüller and Helge Ostertag’s 2012 classic, Terra Mystica pits players against each other as different fantasy factions sculpting the landscape of the world to best fit their culture’s specific needs. Unfortunately, there’s not enough land to go around, so everyone will be jockeying for the space needed to construct buildings, harvest resources and research critical technologies.

Terra Mystica has become a classic among board game enthusiasts for its clever interweaving of economy-style play and territory control - it’s also on Dicebreaker’s list of best fantasy board games. Age of Innovation won’t just be an expansion on that format but will deliver a contained experience that modernises many of the core Terra Mystica mechanics.

A BoardGameGeek forum poster who played Age of Innovation at Gen Con 2022 with Ostertag provided a bit more information (that should be ingested with a grain of salt, of course): the map will include a flip side meant for two and three-player games, the colour scheme will be brighter than previous Terra Mystica entries, and the buildings have received a bit of a facelift to make them easier to differentiate at a glance.

Originally, Terra Mystica: Age of Innovation was scheduled for a release in the first half of 2021. As chronicled by Ostertag himself in a frequently edited BGG post, it was initially delayed into the second half of 2021 before being shunted into 2022 due to the COVID-19 pandemic’s strain on global shipping and production - an issue still facing most analogue publishers.

To wit, Age of Innovation’s 2023 release date has been kept vague, likely to give the designers and publisher plenty of planning runway. Dicebreaker has reached out to Capstone Games directly for more information and will update this piece accordingly.