Cyclades: Legendary Edition is a ‘director’s cut’ of the mythical board game, headed to Kickstarter this year

Greek mythology board game Cyclades is returning with a Legendary Edition that combines the original game and its expansions into a brand new experience.

Cyclades: Legendary Edition appears to be the finalised name for the board game first seen by Dicebreaker last year, known at the time as Cyclades 2 and described as a complete “remake” of the 2009 title.

As in the original game, up to five players compete to earn the favour of Greek gods by collecting gold from islands and sea spaces. After income is collected, the members of the Greek pantheon, along with mythical monsters such as the Hydra, are then offered up for auction, with players using their money to take control of their unique powers for the turn. Powers range from Zeus’ ability to spawn priests and build temples to Apollo’s boosting of income, Poseidon’s seafaring prowess and Ares’ movement of armies.

In order to win, a player must build three metropolises in their territory - one more than in the original rules - through a variety of objectives, from constructing different buildings and owning philosophers to sacrificing hero characters and taking enemy cities via combat.

According to BoardGameGeek posts by publisher Open Sesame Games, the Legendary Edition represents a “director’s cut” of Cyclades and its three expansions - 2011’s Hades, 2014’s Titans and 2016’s Monuments - by creators Bruno Cathala and Ludovic Maublanc.

The designers are said to have “reworked” the game’s rules to “make gameplay more dynamic and fluid”. The changes include increasing the number of gods to six from five in the original base game, and combining the abilities of Kronos and Hades into the new character of Hera, who includes elements of both in her powers focused on supporting troops with mercenaries.

Changes have also been made to the game’s central auction round, with a new exponential bidding scale that speeds up auctions and is said to make bidding battles more dynamic.

In another major change, the upcoming board game now plays out on a new modular board assembled from a number of different tiles for a unique layout during each playthrough.

In addition to the standard ‘Classic’ rules for three to five people, the Legendary Edition of Cyclades will allow four or six players to form competing groups of two in a team mode, and revises the original game’s two-player mode - said by its creators to be “totally reworked to be a real way to play it”.

Cyclades: Legendary Edition is due to hit Kickstarter in Q2 2023, ahead of a planned release date next year. A retail release will follow the crowdfunding campaign.

Open Sesame Games confirmed that no upgrade pack would be offered to make existing copies of the original work with the new rules, stating that the differences are too great to allow compatibility. However, a cheaper version of the game will be released that swaps its miniatures for meeples and standees.