Corey Konieczka Asks You to Take The Initiative

In January 2020, I posted about the founding of Unexpected Games, a new studio under the Asmodee umbrella "centered around innovative design and spearheaded by renowned game designer Corey Konieczka", with Konieczka having left his role as VP of Research & Design at Fantasy Flight Games in mid-2019 to start this new position.

The first title from Unexpected Games — initially due out in 2020, but now scheduled for release in Q2 2021 — is The Initiative, a 1-4 player co-operative game from Konieczka that seems unlike anything he's done previously. Here's an overview:

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The Initiative — a unique board game of story, strategy, and code-breaking — lets players take on the role of teenagers in 1994 who have found a mysterious board game called "The Key". Not only will they play The Key, but players will help the teens through a pivotal chapter of their lives by following a series of missions linked together via an interactive comic book.

The game's campaign is broken into a number of chapters, each taking 30-60 minutes to complete and each starting with you reading a page of the comic book. The story advances even if players fail a mission, but winning may provide a reward in the future. Each chapter builds on the knowledge and story from previous chapters, weaving narrative, code-breaking, and mystery into one thrilling game experience.

And an excerpt from a press release announcing this design:

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"This game started as a passion project," Head of Unexpected Games, Corey Konieczka, explains. "I've been crafting this idea for years, and I can't wait for people to experience it for themselves."

The Initiative marks the first release from Unexpected Games. Konieczka joined the team at Fantasy Flight Games in 2005 and is best-known for his work on such beloved games as Battlestar Galactica: The Board Game, Star Wars: Rebellion, and Mansions of Madness: First Edition...

"Corey has continued to impress me with his innovative and immersive game design over the decade. We have worked together closely and what I have seen so far of his first game under Unexpected Games is exciting and will get a lot of attention," said Steve Horvath, Head of Publishing for Asmodee USA.

That's all the written info released so far about The Initiative, so for now I'll leave you with this image that will be used on the back of the box: