Shadow of the Colossus inspired a new tactical board game called Leviathan Wilds

polygon.com:

Moon Crab Games is a new studio that was formed late last year by former staff members from Z-Man Games and Fantasy Flight Games. Its first title, Leviathan Wilds, is a novel new board game by Justin Kemppainen, co-designer of Star Wars: Imperial Assault. The project takes its inspiration from the titanic yet intimate battles in Shadow of the Colossus, the classic video game by Japan Studio and Team Ico. It combines hand management with tactics, creating a campaign game focused on movement and combat.

“Shadow of the Colossus is a real favorite of mine, but there’s a bit of tonal diversion,” Kemppainen said. “This is using the cooperative game tropes to be about hope, triumph and doing something positive. The really early concept was using those melancholy and bleak tones because I’m a huge fan of things like Dark Souls and Hollow Knight. But with the last couple of years being what they were, it was just nice to shift focus to something that was a bit more uplifting.”

While Shadow of the Colossus tells a tragic story of misunderstanding and destruction,Leviathan Wilds takes a much different tone. In the lore of the game, humanity once lived alongside gentle giants known as leviathans, but a slow-moving corruption caused them to begin wreaking havoc on the world around them. After generations hiding from the rampaging creatures, humans have finally devised a way to cure the leviathans of their madness. From two to four players can take on the roles of adventurers brave enough to climb onto one of the creatures to try and heal it before they lose their grip, are crushed by the flailing beast, or succumb to the same blight afflicting the leviathan.

Polygon played an early alpha version of the game via Tabletop Simulator. In