Carcassonne original and Big Box board games get a new look
Giving the French countryside a fresh coat of paint.
The original version of classic family board game Carcassonne and the Big Box edition have both been given a fresh new look.
Released last month, the new version of Carcassonne Big Box - which has appeared in online stores in both France and Greece, according to reddit user Meepledone - will contain the same contents as Carcassonne Big Box 6, which was released in 2017, but with fresh artwork. The new artwork features an image of the game’s tiles laid together to form a complete board featuring the cities, roads and rivers that are now iconic parts of the beginner board game.
The new artwork for the base game version of Carcassonne contains a vista of a French medieval landscape, with roads; cities and various different people included. Images of the artwork have appeared on various German-language stores, with the game - entitled Carcassonne Third Edition on one particular online store - being priced at €29.99 (£24/$32). According to a description of the game, the new third edition of Carcassonne will feature The River and The Abbot expansions, as well as a rulebook that’s designed to be clearer and more detailed tiles, with all other aspects - besides the artwork - being the same as the previous version of the base game.
Originally released in 2000, Carcassonne is a tile-laying game that sees players competing against each other to score the most points possible by collectively building the image of a French Medieval countryside. On a player’s turn, they select and place a tile onto the table, being sure to put it somewhere it can logically fit. The tiles in Carcassonne each depict various elements of scenery - from roads to cities to people - and must be connected to a tile in a way that makes sense. For example, a road cannot cut into a city tile.
Players score points by laying down tiles that they can place their coloured meeples on and by completing the walls of a city. Whichever player scores the most points by the end of the game is named the winner.
Carcassonne was created by Klaus-Jürgen Wrede, who is also responsible for designing the various expansions for the game such as the Inns & Cathedrals and Traders & Builders expansions. The German-language version of Carcassonne is published by Hans Im Gluck, with the English-language version of the game being released by Z-Man Games, the studio behind co-op board game Pandemic.
There is currently no release date available for the English-language versions of the new Carcassonne Third Edition or Carcassonne Big Box Edition.
Playing Carcassonne for the first time? Then don't forget to check-out our guide on how to play Carcassonne.