Spirit Island designer R Eric Reuss says he is in talks with a new publisher for the hit cooperative game after opting not to renew its publishing deal with Flat River Group.

Reuss said he expects to be able to license Spirit Island to a new publisher “within the next year or so” according to an update posted to BoardGameGeek and Reddit, adding that dozens of publishers had reached out to express interest in the title and that negotiations with one unnamed company were “going well”.

The announcement provides some clarity over the future of one of modern board gaming’s most widely acclaimed cooperative titles, after more than a year of uncertainty following Flat River Group’s sweeping layoffs at its former publishing arm Greater than Games.

Flat River laid off almost all Greater than Games’ staff and suspended new projects in April 2025, blaming economic pressures stemming from the US tariff crisis.

The private equity-backed company subsequently sold off its subsidiary Synapses Games to ACD Distribution last summer, at the same time as industry veterans Jules Vautour, Colin Young and Danni Loe left Flat River to revive distributor Luma Imports as part of ACD.

That was followed two months ago by Flat River selling the brand name and the rights for the Sentinels of the Multiverse titles to Handelabra Games, a deal which also put the Greater than Games brand back in the hands of two of its founders, Paul Bender and Christopher Badell.

Spirit Island was not part of Handelabra’s deal, however, and was also not part of the revived Greater than Games line-up, company CEO Bender confirmed on a May 12 YouTube livestream celebrating the publisher’s return.

Reuss has now confirmed he decided not to renew Spirit Island’s publishing agreement with Flat River in the wake of its decision to lay off staff at Greater than Games.

He said, “I originally signed Spirit Island with Greater Than Games, which was acquired by Flat River Group around 2021-2022.

“In April 2025, FRG laid off nearly all Greater Than Games staff – the folks I’d been working with – and announced the suspension of all new projects. I submitted my non-renewal thereafter.”

Reuss said his agreement specifies that once Flat River’s licence expires, the company can no longer use the Spirit Island trademark or sell new copies beyond existing inventory.

But he added that ownership of the game’s artwork and graphical assets was “less crystal-clear”, and that negotiations with Flat River to reach a deal over the artwork rights had come to nothing.

He said in the update, “I’d be happy to pay Flat River Group to settle this matter and use the existing art, but what they’re asking for is so much higher than what I’m willing to pay that I have to assume a settlement won’t happen.

“To mitigate legal risk, I’m commissioning completely new non-derivative art, graphical assets, etc.”

He added that he would not consider running a crowdfund from fans to raise money for acquiring the art assets from Flat River, saying, “Given that I don’t feel OK paying that much money, I really don’t feel OK asking Spirit Island fans to pay that much money.”

Reuss said new non-Flat River Group versions of the game would retain the same gameplay, spirits, powers, adversaries and expansions, but with entirely new visual interpretations, promising “vibrant, colorful, representational art”.

Despite the extensive visual overhaul, Reuss stressed that no second edition was currently planned, with only minor rules clarifications and potential balance tweaks currently under consideration.

He said his design priority remains the long-awaited Dahan-focused expansion, although recommissioning Spirit Island’s artwork was likely to delay development of that project.

The designer also confirmed that he has no plans to use generative AI artwork in the project, primarily because he wanted to “collaborate with, support, and celebrate human artists”.

He added in the update, “Ssecondarily because (a) all image-creating GenAI I know of was trained unethically, and (b) while queries aren’t so environmentally terrible as is sometimes asserted, training new models is another story entirely (and using GenAI bolsters demand for training new models).”

He continued “I’m not dogmatically anti-GenAI – I’d love to see ethically trained, environmentally conscientious, explainable, non-toxic, reasonably-secure public-option GenAI. Though that doesn’t address the impact on illustrators and other jobs, so maybe also UBI or something? One can dream.”

Reuss said that although dozens of publishers had expressing interest in Spirit Island since April last year, he added that if negotiations ultimately failed he would self-publish the game himself.

He said, “Spirit Island will continue being published, and I’m going to keep working on making new stuff for it. It’s not going away.”

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Steamforged Games, which made its name adapting video games such as Dark Souls into multi-million-dollar board game Kickstarters, has confirmed its second set of redundancies in three years as it refocuses away from crowdfunding and towards its booming Warmachine miniatures line.

The company has been one of tabletop crowdfunding’s biggest success stories over the past decade, raising tens of millions of pounds across campaigns based on major video game licences such as Resident Evil, Monster Hunter, Horizon Zero Dawn and Elden Ring.

About a third of the company’s employees are estimated to have been affected by this year’s restructure according to multiple sources who spoke to BoardGameWire on condition of anonymity – mirroring the scale of a previous round of redundancies Steamforged embarked on in 2023.

They said the staff cuts affected a range of departments across the business, including the creative, game design, production, project management, QA, marketing and commercial teams – adding that they feared the cutbacks would lead to problems delivering long-term projects.

Steamforged would not confirm the scale of the latest redundancies to BoardGameWire, but a spokesperson described the staff reduction as “carefully considered”, adding that the company “retain[s] both the internal resource and the external capabilities needed to deliver on our commitments”.

Those commitments include seven currently unfulfilled crowdfunding campaigns which raised more than £15m including late pledges, for titles such as Monster Hunter World Iceborne, Elden Ring: Rot & Sorcery, Helldivers 2: The Board Game and the special edition of classic eurogame Terra Mystica.

Steamforged is also currently attempting to fulfil a pre-order campaign for 6: Siege – The Board Game after buying the title from bankrupt board game crowdfunding specialist Mythic Games – and came under fire from backers last week for posting AI-generated images in a production update it says were sent to it by the manufacturer.

The Steamforged spokesperson told BoardGameWire the AI images were not caught by its team before posting due to “simple human error”, adding “We took this extremely seriously, investigated, and swiftly provided authentic images.

Other currently unfulfilled projects from the publisher include the US production and shipping of Horizon Forbidden West: Seeds of Rebellion and Euthia: Cruel Frost, both of which were postponed due to tariffs uncertainty last year, and the second wave of its P3 Paints crowdfund, which has been delayed by up to a year due to a production issue with the metallic colours.

When asked for reassurance that those campaigns would be fulfilled despite the redundancies and strategic shift, a spokesperson for Steamforged told BoardGameWire, “Steamforged has never failed to fulfil a crowdfunding campaign, even during difficult times, or to make tough choices to deliver on commitments.

“Right now, 6: Siege – The Board Game is entering the final stages of production and will start shipping to supporters in July.”

Steamforged confirmed to BoardGameWire that the redundancies were part of a decision to “reduce new board game crowdfunding activity for the moment” amid the surging growth of Warmachine, the miniatures wargame line it bought from Privateer Press two years ago alongside P3 Paints and the Iron Kingdoms roleplaying series.

The spokesperson said Steamforged had tripled Warmachine and P3 Paints revenue in the last 21 months, despite facing significant stock constraints in the first year due to heavy demand.

They told BoardGameWire, “Demand has been high and we’ve scaled production to meet it. Our US production capacity for Warmachine has increased by 70% since last March, with a 25% increase in Europe
since August and new production facilities introduced in the UK in February 2026.”

The spokesperson added, “Steamforged has always had two strong sides, both retail and crowdfunding, and was originally founded as a miniatures game company. Warmachine’s growth has shown clear demand over and above expectations and has become a core focus to support that growth.

“Our board game crowdfunding projects are currently in various stages of production with the vast majority of creative work complete.

“Our intention to reduce new board game crowdfunding activity for the moment while we focus on supporting Warmachine’s growth meant we needed to restructure accordingly, which included a confidential redundancy process in Q1 of 2026 that’s now complete.”

When asked how the strategic shift towards Warmachine would affect previously announced future crowdfunds such as Tyrant, the spokesperson said, “Steamforged has always looked several years into the future and our internal roadmaps reflect that.

“As with any company, particularly one that works with other studios the way we have, that means many potential projects have been put on ice over the years as opportunities change and emerge. Some of those came to fruition later, and others didn’t.

“Tyrant was an early announcement and was always intended to be a slow build. Given our strategic focus, it’s not something we intend to move forward with in the foreseeable future.”

Asked what they expected Steamforged Games to look like as a business over the next couple of years, the spokesperson concluded, “Over the next two years, we expect Warmachine will continue its strong growth supported by our dedicated team and launch plans in the miniatures and hobby categories.”

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