From AT-ATs to killer dolls: Brands head to the tabletop at Spiel 2025

Last week saw the board game industry make its annual trip to Essen for Spiel – the world’s biggest tabletop gaming event. And this saw the biggest get bigger, with an extra hall and record-breaking number of visitors – 220,000 across the four days. According to organisers, 948 exhibitors brought more than 1,700 new releases to Essen – and among those were plenty of exciting licensed titles.

Some of the most attention-grabbing launches came from industry titan Asmodee. Its Days of Wonder studio showcased Star Wars: Battle of Hoth from designers Richard Borg and Adrien Martinot. This licensed revamp of Borg’s popular Memoir 44’ game uses its ‘Command and Colors’ system to enable players to engage in one of the franchise’s most iconic battles.

That was one of several high-profile Star Wars launches for Asmodee, but equally as impressive was the company’s offering for fans of The Lord of the Rings. Game design royalty Reinzer Knizia has created a dice game with the brand called The Hobbit: There and Back Again. Another big name designer to embrace Middle-earth is Matt Leacock, who is behind a licensed reimagining of his modern classic Pandemic called The Lord of the Rings: Fate of the Fellowship – which comes complete with a dice tower shaped like Barad-dûr.

If Asmodee is using licensing to broaden the audience for titles like Memoir 44 and Pandemic, another interesting example of brands helping take a popular European title to the masses came from Spin Master.

The toy giant had two new licensed versions of Magic Mountain at Spiel – one called Lilo & Stitch: Surf Showdown and another revamped as Paw Patrol: Roll, Race, Rescue. The original Magic Mountain – published by AMIGO and designed by Jens-Peter Schliemann and Bernhard Weber – was themed around witches and sorcerers. It won the prestigious Kinderspiel des Jahres and sees balls rolling down an eye-catching sloping board.

It’s a brilliant family game, and one that perhaps didn’t get the exposure it deserved outside of Europe. It’s great to see it get a new lease of life through some smart licensing.

Lookout Games’ Fight for Olympus has been given a licensed revamp in Marvel: Skirmish in New York and there were plenty of more traditional licensed takes on existing games… Ravensburger had Lotti Karotti: Disney Edition and a junior edition of Schmidt debuted DOG: Avatar and Dobble had a Lord of the Rings edition called Dobble: Quest for the One Ring.

Elsewhere, Maestro Media previewed its line of Disney Afternoon Rewind games. The six games – complete with VHS-style retro packaging – are based on classic Disney TV properties DuckTales, Darkwing Duck, TaleSpin, Gargoyles, Goof Troop and Chip ‘n Dale: Rescue Rangers.

The range continues an impressive streak for licensed games specialist Maestro, whose strategy for pairing up beloved IP with renowned designers has seen Wolfgang Kramer and Daryl Andrews tackle Donald Duck, Phil Walker-Harding adapt 2001: A Space Odyssey, while Eric M. Lang and Ken Gruhl are behind a Clash of Clans game coming in 2026.

One prevalent theme this year seemed to be board game adaptations of popular video game IP. Mood Publishing previewed Hitman: The Board Game – based on the popular franchise from IO Interactive – ahead of its Kickstarter launch and also showcased a card game adaptation of Coffee Stain Studios’ Goat Simulator.

Spiel also played host to Apex Legends: The Board Game from Glass Cannon Unplugged, Gwent – a card game taken from the world of The Witcher – from No Loading Games, as well as Go On Board’s The Witcher: Path of Destiny.

Also shown off was Terraria: The Board Game from the team at Paper Fort Games. Based on the popular indie video game from Re: Logic, the game lands later this year following a successful Kickstarter campaign that raised over £1m.

One eye-catching mass market launch was Goliath’s Chucky: The Game, which comes complete with a little version of the iconic killer doll. The game sees players race to find the toy store, turning over cards to get weapons and occasionally pushing a button next to Chucky that may ‘trigger’ him – which here means he’ll pop up, arms aloft, knife in hand, mouth in a manic scream… Think a party game riff on the ‘push-push-POP!’ fun of something like Pop Up Pirate.

While a consumer show like Spiel isn’t yet a destination for the licensing industry in the same way that London Toy Fair, Spielwarenmesse and New York Toy Fair are, the offering this year cements the sector as an exciting one for IP owners. And with more B2B initiatives planned for the show in the near future, who knows, maybe we’ll see more licensing execs make the trip to Essen in 2026.