Castle Ravenloft Returns as Renegade Revives Classic D&D Board Game

One of the games that help popularise Dungeons & Dragons as a cooperative dungeon-crawling board game is returning to tabletops.

Renegade Game Studios have announced a new edition of Dungeons & Dragons: Castle Ravenloft Board Game, bringing the increasingly difficult to find 2010 game back into print in February 2027. The new release is being produced in partnership with Wizards of the Coast and Hasbro.

Refreshed Look… Same Gameplay

Despite being described as a new edition, Renegade isn’t substantially redesigning the game from Wizards of the Coast’s original version. Instead, Renegade are retaining the original D&D Adventure System gameplay, while updating the illustrations, logos, and graphic design to bring the game cisually into line with the current incarnation of Dungeons & Dragons.

This means that Castle Ravenloft will remain the relatively quick and accessible cooperative dungeron crawler it was when it was originally released. Between one and five players take control of adventurers exploring beneath Castle Ravenloft, revealing dungeon tiles as they go while fighting monsters, encountering traps, collecting treasure, and eventually confronting Count SDtrahd von Zarovich.

Individual adventures take around an hour, with 13 different scenarios included. The box contains 41 Dungeon Tiles, 42 miniatures (5 Heroes, 30 Monsters, and 7 Villains), 209 Cards, 192 Tokens, a Rulebook, Adventure Book, and the all important d20 dice.

Standard & Premium Editions

Renegade will be producing two versions of the game. A Standard Edition which includes the complete game with unpainted miniatures, and a Premium Edition which is exactly the same apart from having the 42 miniatures pre-painted. The Standard Edition will retail for £90 ($100), whereas the Premium Edition will retail for £180 ($200).

The D&D Adventure System Series

Castle Ravenloft was the first in a range of cooperative D&D boardgames that Wizards of the Coast released using the D&D Adventure System, with WizKids taking over for new titles in 2015. Along with Castle Ravenloft (2010), the range consisted of Wrath of Ashardalon (2011), The Legend of Drizzt (2011), Temple of Elemental Evil (2015), Tomb of Annihilation (2017), Waterdeep - Dungeon of the Mad Mage (2019), and Ghosts of Saltmarsh (2021).

Castle Ravenloft helped define cooperative fantasy board gaming for an entire generation of players” said Scott Gaeta, President of Renegade Game Studios. “We’re excited to bring this classic back to tables everywhere, while introducing a beautiful Premimum Edition with pre-painted miniatures that makes the experience even more immersive right out of the box."

It’ll certainly be interesting to see if other refreshed editions in the D&D Adventure System range of titles follow Castle Rravenloft’s lead.