“For now, I’m done”: Ankh: Gods of Egypt is final board game in Blood Rage and Rising Sun ‘mythic trilogy’, Eric Lang confirms
Designer teases potential future title inspired by Greek mythology.
Blood Rage and Rising Sun creator Eric Lang has confirmed to Dicebreaker that upcoming board game Ankh: Gods of Egypt will be the last instalment in his ‘mythic trilogy’.
The series began in 2015 with Norse-themed board game Blood Rage, followed by the Japan-set Rising Sun in 2018 and Ankh: Gods of Egypt, planned for release in 2021. All three games see players pledging alliances to or controlling legendary gods and monsters from their respective mythologies while competing for domination over the board.
According to Lang, the ‘mythic trilogy’ - as it came to be known - wasn’t initially intended to be a series.
“I’d love to say yes [it was planned], but it was more like the Matrix movies in [...] that it obviously wasn’t,” said Lang.
Blood Rage was originally created as a re-imagining of Lang’s previous Viking-themed board game Midgard. After Midgard became a “mediocre success” following its release in 2007, Lang decided he wanted to approach the concept of a Norse board game in a different way and began to design Blood Rage. Part-way through the development of the board game, Lang realised he wanted to create further titles in the same style.
After Blood Rage came Rising Sun, a board game set in ancient Japan that saw players assume the roles of different clans fighting in a battle of dominance and piety. Believing there “[weren’t] many big box board games focusing on Japanese mythology out there”, Lang designed a board game that shared gameplay similarities with Blood Rage but veered off into a new thematic direction.
Upcoming board game Ankh: Gods of Egypt is the latest entry in the series, casting players as Egyptian deities struggling to stay relevant in a changing world. Featuring a variety of different gods - each with their unique ability - Ankh will combine area-control and worker-placement mechanics to provide a gameplay experience that Lang describes as being somewhere between Blood Rage and Rising Sun in complexity.
Lang confirmed that Ankh: Gods of Egypt will be the final title in the trilogy, telling Dicebreaker: “For now, I’m done. I feel like this [Ankh] puts a nice bow on it.”
However, the designer expressed his desire to explore mythological themes and settings in future board games outside of the ‘mythic’ series.
“There are definitely others,” he said. “If I did [design one] I’d probably not make it part of the series, it would be a different thing.”
The broader relationships between the gods in Greek mythology are similar enough that I would have to wait to hit on a really different angle.
Lang teased the possibility of a future board game inspired by the pantheon of Greek gods, but noted the potential similarities between the conflicts found in the Greek classics and Egyptian myths.
“The broader relationships between the gods in Greek mythology are similar enough that I would have to wait to hit on a really different angle.”
He added that the oversaturation of Greek-themed tabletop titles was another possible challenge, claiming “there’s just too many Greek games out there”.
Other than the mythic trilogy, Lang is known for co-creating horror board game Cthulhu: Death May Die, co-op board game Marvel United and living card game Game of Thrones: The Card Game.
Ankh: Gods of Egypt is currently up on Kickstarter until May 5th, with a pledge of $100 (£81) getting a copy of the core game. It’s planned to arrive with backers sometime in May 2021.