2025 marks the thirtieth anniversary of Catan, and the tabletop sport is ready to get its sixth version this April. That is the primary replace to the settler-oriented multiplayer board sport in a few decade, with the fifth edition–the model that reworked the secret from The Settlers of Catan to simply Catan–releasing in June 2015. As the sport celebrates its thirtieth birthday, the designers are hoping to keep up the sport’s place as a significant go-to onramp for folks discovering the enjoyment of enjoying tabletop video games.
“How do you retain an outdated sport related even after 30 years, proper? Particularly when gaming has developed,” managing director and sport designer Benjamin Teuber advised me. “The interest continues to develop and develop, and there are such a lot of nice video games. Yearly, I’ve three new favourite video games, and subsequent 12 months there [will be] three extra and that is superior, that is stunning. However there’s apparently nonetheless one thing to Catan as a result of we nonetheless have excellent gross sales numbers. …There are all the time new folks becoming a member of this interest, and Catan nonetheless appears to be the entry degree product, [the game] for a lot of to search out.”
For Teuber, it does not matter that Catan is 30 years outdated. Even when many who tried the sport and cherished it could finally transfer on to extra complicated or area of interest tabletop techniques, Catan goes to maintain being a brand new expertise for somebody. Teuber advised me a narrative about how Village Romance developer Michael Palm just lately messaged him about enjoying Catan along with his child, who screamed, “Klaus Teuber is the best sport developer!” in the course of the sport (Klaus is Benjamin’s father and the creator of Catan).
“The son is 10, so for him, Catan is a brand new expertise,” Teuber stated. “Why ought to or not it’s worse [for him] than [it was] 30 years in the past for folks to play? It is nonetheless chatting with the whole lot that [many people] love [in RPGs], like harvesting, buying and selling, social interplay, [and] constructing. [This game] remains to be related. And, in fact, possibly different video games are [being] developed, however there’s nonetheless Catan being a gateway sport for a lot of who simply realized about [tabletop] gaming.”
For people who have not but tried Catan, the sport sees three to 4 gamers (or as much as six with the appropriate growth) roleplay as settlers trying to ascertain a brand new dwelling on the titular fictional island. Gamers roll cube on their flip to find out the yield of assets adjoining to the land they personal, and these assets in flip will be spent to construct infrastructure and roads. You possibly can commerce assets with different gamers, steal assets, and construct armies as properly, creating alternatives to construct alliances or betray buddies. As every participant’s settlement grows, they achieve factors. Whichever participant reaches 10 factors first wins.
Catan is not going by means of any main rule changes for this version, although guidelines are getting streamlined and reprinted in a brand new format in order that it needs to be simpler for gamers to parse how the whole lot works and begin enjoying. The visuals of the sport are altering, too.
“Mechanically, nothing has modified from fifth version to sixth version,” director of name growth Kevin Hovdestad advised me. “We actually wished to be sure that folks might convey their present data of the sport with them, that any individual who picks up the brand new one as a result of they love the brand new artwork or they need the brand new bins or simply as a result of they get it as a present, that what they’re accustomed to remains to be the identical expertise. …The [only] change we made to the principles was to attempt to make them extra beginner-friendly: guidelines which can be extra footage, much less phrases, [and] faster to get by means of so that somebody can look at it and see a visible rationalization moderately than one thing that is actually like that old-school two-column, the whole lot is defined in painstaking element.”
Visually, the sixth version of Catan’s art work is far brighter and pulls the sport’s setting each a couple of years ahead and away from Europe–it’s nonetheless pre-Industrial Revolution, however you are now not enjoying in a strictly medieval time interval with heavy Western European vibes.
“We have heard quite a lot of, [even from] my spouse, ‘Hey, that is good, however [Catan] is somewhat bit too medieval-ish. It isn’t so attractive for me,'” Teuber stated. “[Sixth edition] remains to be pre-industrial, but it surely’s extra vibrant and feels extra like an imagined world that you just put your self into [on] this island. And that is what we heard quite a bit within the final decade: ‘Hey, Catan, to me, it is truly probably not linked to a specific story, but it surely’s me projecting myself into this uninhabited island. There is no such thing as a one and [no culture]. And you’ll construct up no matter you need to construct up.’ And that is good. So we took out much more [of] the European millage. I fairly like that. I’ve to say my spouse’s all the time a great supply of inspiration.”
“The up to date artwork helps to convey extra folks into the sport,” Hovdestad stated. “We have executed a very good job of evolving previous the unique design. Now, there’s a wide range of completely different folks, poses, [and] garbs. It actually simply showcases somewhat bit extra vary, and the sport is somewhat bit brighter consequently.”
Most interesting for somebody like me, who wishes aesthetic excellence for my cabinets in order that my gaming nook seems fairly, is that the brand new version ought to make it a tad simpler to maintain your entire expansions organized in a single place. “In the event you purchase any of the brand new Catan base sport [boxes] or its expansions–the Seafarers, Cities & Knights, whatever–they [will now] match inside the bottom sport field,” Hovdestad stated. “You possibly can condense them they usually all collapse collectively. The entire bins are the identical measurement and form. The cardboard trays that at the moment are within the base sport [in sixth edition] are one thing folks have been asking for ceaselessly, and you’ll see [in the new sixth edition box] simply the big vary of equipment [we now have] from years [of player requests]. We’re doing that factor the place everyone saved making [third-party accessories] for us and making it ourselves.”
Catan Sixth Version is ready to launch in Spring 2025, with preorders already dwell. “The manufacturing groups on the sport have labored some actual magic,” Hovdestad concluded. “So whereas generally, sure, updates can really feel like they’re simply beauty, we have made enhancements to how the bins are designed, [and] what’s within the bins have truly enabled us to decrease the worth of the sport. Catan Sixth Version is cheaper than Catan Fifth Version was, although it is a brand-new factor popping out in 2025. These sorts of alternatives are onerous to not take as a result of all of us dwell in the actual world. Meals obtained costlier, my home obtained costlier, my taxes went up, however Catan obtained cheaper.”
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