Catan's new version still wants to be your gateway into tabletop gaming

2025 marks the 30th anniversary of Catan, and the tabletop game will launch its sixth edition in April this year. This is the first update for the settler-oriented multiplayer board game in almost a decade, with the fifth edition – which changed the title from Catan to Catan – released in June 2015. Released monthly. As the game celebrates its 30th birthday, the designers hope to maintain the game's status as the primary entry point for people to explore the joys of tabletop gaming.

“How do you keep an old game relevant even 30 years later, right? Especially when the game has evolved,” general manager and game designer Benjamin Teuber told me. “The hobby keeps growing and growing, and there are so many great games. Every year, I have three new favorite games, and next year I'll have three more, which is awesome and beautiful. But obviously there's still stuff coming Catan, because we still have good sales numbers…There are always new people joining the hobby, and Catan still seems to be the entry-level product (game) that a lot of people are looking for.”

For Tobel, it doesn't matter that Catan is 30 years old. Even though many people who try the game and enjoy it may eventually move on to more complex or niche desktop systems, Catan will still be a new experience for some. Teuber told me a story about how Village Romance developer Michael Palm recently sent him a message about playing Catan with his kids, and his kids screamed, “Klaus Teuber is the coolest Game Developer!” during the game (Klaus is Benjamin's father and the creator of Catan).

“My son is 10 years old, so Catan is a new experience for him,” Tobel said. “Why would it be worse (for him) than the games people played 30 years ago? It still involves everything that (many people) like (in role-playing games), like harvesting, trading, social interaction, (and ) (The game) is still relevant, and of course, maybe other games are in development, but Catan is still a gateway game for a lot of people who are just learning about (tabletop) gaming.”

For those who haven't tried Catan yet, the game sees three to four players (up to six with the right expansion) taking on the role of settlers trying to establish a new home on the fictional island. Players take turns rolling dice to determine the yield of resources near the land they own, which in turn can be used to build infrastructure and roads. You can trade resources with other players, steal resources, and build armies, creating opportunities to forge alliances or betray friends. As each player's settlement grows, they gain points. Whichever player reaches 10 points first wins.

Catan isn't getting any major rules tweaks in this version, although the rules are being simplified and reprinted in a new format so that players can more easily parse out how everything works and start playing. The game's visuals are also changing.

“Mechanically, nothing changes from fifth edition to sixth edition,” brand development director Kevin Hofdestad told me. “We really want to make sure that people can take their existing knowledge of the game with them, that people who are getting a new game because they like the new art or they want a new box or just because they got it as a gift, that what they're used to is still the same The experience… The (only) change we made to the rules was to try to make them more beginner-friendly: the rules were more pictures, less text, (and) quicker to beat so someone could. Take a look and see intuitive explanations with everything explained in meticulous detail rather than the old fashioned two columns. ”

Visually, the sixth version of Catan's artwork is brighter and moves the game's setting a few years further away from Europe – it's still the pre-Industrial Revolution period, but you're no longer in A strictly medieval period game with a strong Western flair. European style.

“We heard a lot[even from]my wife, 'Hey, it's good, but[Catan]is a little too medieval. It's not that sexy to me,'” Tobel said. “(Sixth Edition) is still pre-industrial, but it's more vibrant and feels more like an imaginary world where you put yourself on this island. That's what we've been hearing a lot over the past decade:' Hey Catan, to me it actually has something to do with a specific There's no real connection to the story, but I project myself onto this uninhabited island and you can build whatever you want, which is nice, so we took out more European millers and I. I have to say my wife is always a great source of inspiration.”

“Updated art helps attract more people to the game,” Hovdestad said. “We've done a really good job of moving beyond the original design. Now, there's a variety of different characters, poses, and costumes. It really just shows off a little more range, and the game is a little brighter because of it.”

The most attractive thing for someone like me is that the new version should make it easier to organize all the expansion packs in one place, because I want my bookshelf to have superior aesthetics for my gaming corner. Looks beautiful. “If you buy any of the new Catan base game (boxes) or its expansions — Sailors, Cities and Knights, etc. — they (will now) come in the base game box,” Hovdestad said. “You can compress them together and they collapse together. All the boxes are the same size and shape. Now the chucks in the base game (sixth edition) are something people have been asking for and you can see that (in The new 6th edition box) is just a ton of accessories (that we have now) that have been available over the years (based on player requests) and what we're doing is everyone keeps making (third party accessories) for us and making their own. ”

Catan version 6 will be launched in spring 2025. pre order Already live. “The team behind the game worked some real magic,” Hovdestad concluded. “So, while sometimes updates may feel like they're just cosmetic, we've made improvements to the way the box is designed, (and) what's in the box actually allows us to lower the price of the game. Catan Island 6th Edition is cheaper than Catan 5th Edition even though it's brand new in 2025. It's hard not to take advantage of these opportunities because we all live in the real world and food gets more expensive and so does my house. More expensive. , my taxes have increased, but Catan has become cheaper.”