Disney and Marvel Villainous have collectively sold almost 3 million units
Being bad has never been so profitable.
Disney Villainous and Marvel Villainous: Infinite Power have collectively sold almost three million units.
According to a PR representative for Ravensburger – the publisher behind the Villainous franchise – the sales of units for both Disney Villainous and Marvel Villainous have almost reached a total of three million copies.
The Villainous series began with the release of Disney Villainous in 2018, a Disney-themed board game for two to six players that sees people becoming beloved baddies from the animated studios’ history. In the game, players can choose between the likes of Jafar from Aladdin, Captain Hook from Peter Pan, Prince John from Robin Hood, the Queen of Hearts from Alice in Wonderland, Ursula from The Little Mermaid and Maleficent from Sleeping Beauty.
As these villainous characters, players each have their own unique win condition that they’ll have to pursue if they want to win the game. For instance, Prince John wants to be the first to collect 20 power tokens, whilst Jafar wants to gain control of the genie and defeat Aladdin. On a player’s turn, they can move to a section of their domain board in order to perform one of the actions shown on the space. Possible player actions include gaining power tokens, drawing cards, discarding cards, defeating enemies and playing cards. However, should an enemy card be covering any of the actions on the space, the player cannot perform those there until they have defeated that enemy.
Besides doing things within their own domain, players can decide to draw a fate card and use its effects on another player, forcing them to take penalties or have enemies be placed within their domain. Players can defeat enemies in their domain if they have allies or items to fight them with. Whichever player manages to achieve their character’s win condition first is the victor.
Marvel Villainous: Infinite Power is a Marvel-themed board game that works similarly to Disney Villainous, except for the inclusion of characters from the Marvel comics universe and the addition of some new gameplay mechanics. Release in 2020, Marvel Villainous sees players taking on the roles of classic Marvel supervillains such as Hela, Thanos and Killmonger, with the goal being to fulfill their character’s specific win conditions first.
The main difference between Marvel Villainous and Disney Villainous is that each character no longer has a specific fate deck for their opponents to take from in Marvel Villainous, instead, players have a shared fate deck that will feature cards specifically targeted to certain characters in play – meaning that players cannot target certain characters when performing the fate action.
Disney Villainous and Marvel Villainous were both developed by Prospero Hall, a company that has also designed other licensed board games such as Horrified, a co-op title themed around Universal Monsters.
Apart from the Villainous series, Ravensburger is best known for publishing the aforementioned Horrified, as well as The Castles of Burgundy and Puerto Rico.
The latest entry in the Villainous franchise, Star Wars Villainous: Power of the Dark Side, was revealed last week. Inspired by the beloved Star Wars sci-fi universe, Star Wars Villainous will see players taking the mantle of iconic baddie Darth Vader, alongside the likes of Kylo Ren, General Grievous, The Clone Wars’ Asaji Ventress and Moff Gideon, who was featured in the recent Mandalorian television show. The upcoming game is set to be launched sometime in August.