Call of Duty: The Board Game brings FPS excitement to Gen Con

polygon.com:

I’ll admit it: I was skeptical about Call of Duty: The Board Game. First person shooters rely on twitch reflexes and heart-pounding action in an attempt to capture the electricity of armed conflict. Board games, on the other hand, rely on careful planning and measured activity. The two formats are fundamentally at odds. But after playing in a demo of the upcoming Call of Duty board game from Arcane Wonders, I can say that much of my apprehension has fallen away.

Set up to play on the table, Call of Duty: The Board Game features a central map depicting the battlefield as well as miniatures representing each player. You take on the role of highly trained operators from the video game series, such as Shepherd or Ghost, and compete in a head-to-head match. The goal is to move your soldier around the map and secure the central control point while also trying to kill your foe. When gunfights do break out they are swift and deadly, with the loser being killed outright. Yes, gone, ready to respawn next round. Meanwhile, the operator that domed their opponent is free to run around, possibly capturing control points or securing a more favorable position.

While I haven’t engaged in the tactile offerings of the design (Polygon’s demo was performed online, via Tabletop Simulator, in advance of this year’s Gen Con), I have seen the game’s clever maneuvering system in motion and felt the tension of attempting to outthink my opponent and catch them in my sights. In fact, that movement system is at the very core of the experience.

Before every round, each player takes four sequenced movement tokens and secretly plots them on a minimap of the larger board. The hidden movement system riffs somewhat on similar systems found in aerial