A new edition of Risk 2210 A.D., a gritty offshoot of the classic board game, is now available to preorder

Risks’ future war-themed board game, Risk 2210 A.D., is coming back thanks to the publisher of Vampire: The Masquerade and Heroscape. Renegade Games Studios has officially opened preorders for a new release of the 2001 title that will begin shipping next month.

As we reported last year, this is part of Renegade Game Studios' continuing licensing deal with Hasbro to produce and distribute titles beloved by their loyal audiences but perhaps not suited to mass market retail. Nexus Ops was the other board game optioned in the same deal, and the publisher had previously rescued miniature skirmish game Heroscape from another banishment to irrelevancy after a failed HasLab crowdfunding campaign.

Originally designed by Avalon Hill, Risk 2210 A.D. won't be much different from its first box, and that’s on purpose. The studio wants to introduce newer audiences to a version of classic Risk that trades human troops for mechs and specialised commanders who do battle across a bombed-out Earth whose landmasses have been indelibly altered by decades of warfare. Notable quality of life changes include a double-sided moon board and resealable plastic bags to hold components.

One of the biggest changes is that sessions only last five rounds, so the two-to-five opponents won’t duke it out until world domination but instead attempt to secure the reins of power and emerge as the eventual victor. Armies will battle on the surface, in vast subnautical cities and even on the moon. Players will hire and deploy commanders with abilities (Land, Naval, Space, Nuclear, and Diplomat) that can turn the tables on certain defeat and transform a pyrrhic victory into a landslide.

Each box will contain over 450 individual pieces, enough for five full armies to duke it out at the same time in sessions that the publisher estimates could take up to 4 hours to complete. It will also include rules for using the components to play Risk by its classic rules using the 2210 world map as the main game board but without the moon and underwater locations.

Preorders for Risk 2210 A.D. are now open on Renegade Game Studios’ website, and boxes should ship out in May of this year. Renegade Game Studios was supposedly working on a tabletop adaptation of the Welcome to Night Vale podcast as of last year, but we’ve yet to hear any updates.