Restoration Games was in full bloom on the Gen Con exhibit hall floor. A raging battle between film monsters was in one corner of the booth showing off prototype bits from the upcoming Battle Monsters, a wargame based on the Legendary-owned IP of classic monster films (Kong, Godzilla, etc..) Return to Dark Tower: Expeditions is an expansion to the base game adding new heroes and a sort of extra questline that is independent of the main game objective. Thunder Road: Vendetta – Interstate of Decay will be an expansion that introduces a replayable campaign where players can upgrade their cars between races. Finally, there is the Unmatched line of fighting games. So, so many more boxes of Unmatched. Battle of Legends Volume 3 is out, Bruce Lee is coming back in a box with Muhammad Ali, the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles co-op box is due out soon, and the popular London-themed Cobble & Fog box is coming back into print. The last of the character design contest entries will be released in a Stars & Stripes box. Finally, we now know there will be some sort of Hellboy themed release next year.

Battle Monsters

Front and center (metaphorically, it was really on one of the exposed corners) was a busy area where Restoration Games was showing off a prototype for the upcoming 1 to 4 player game, Battle Monsters. It just completed a crowdfunding campaign, so don’t look for it to release before Q3 or Q4 next year (2026.) It’s a Restoration Games take on the old MIlton Bradley Battle Masters game from the early 90s. It was a wargame collaboration with Games Workshop so had a theme leaning towards GW’s Warhammer Fantasy Battle but with much simpler mechanics.

Well, whatever you call it, it’s back and in a very literal, big way. Battle Monsters puts players in the role of monsters from the Legendary Monsterverse (the “official” monsters from the Legendary film studio.) It comes in two base flavors, a box containing Godzilla and King Ghidorah (a 3 headed dragonish creature) and a different box containing Kong and Mechagodzilla. (There’s a Mothra available in a separate expansion.) Of course, you can mix and match the creature fights to your heart’s content. Having the movie IP rights means each of the “megatures” look just like you saw them in films.

In the actual game, players control both one of the main monsters, but also one of several factions that fight alongside their monsters. Each monster comes with a different faction but you can mix and match the factions with the monsters. Each of the core boxes also have a two-sided map, so a complete game set has 4 maps to choose from.

There is a solo mode, where a player takes on a titan of their choice, which is controlled by an automata. If they wish, two players can take on a single titan in a cooperative game, but in that case one player would control that side’s titan, and the other player would control the army faction.

Return to Dark Tower: Expeditions

My family are big Return to Dark Tower fans so I’m excited to see another big expansion coming down the pike, with a Kickstarter campaign going live sometime around Q4 2025. The new expansion has 4 new heroes and adds expeditions. There are four, one is picked to use at the start of the game.) Expeditions offer players new gear and treasures if they’re willing to take on the challenges. While expeditions are not a replacement for the main quest line for a game, they do have a bit of a longer-quest narrative arc.

The new characters are the Jocular Druid, the Grizzled Mariner, the Enlightened Ascetic, and the Clever Tinkerer. (I call “dibs” on the tinker…) Of course, there’s also more of all the other stuff (loot, corruption, etc.…) too.

Thunder Road: Vendetta – Interstate of Decay

Looking further out, there will be a crowdfunding campaign some time in 2026 for another expansion to Thunder Road. Interstate of Decay will provide players a campaign mode consisting of four parts/races that try to bring out the whole backstory of the game in a more cinematic way. During play, players will get to “level up” their cars between races. This is not a “Legacy” campaign mode, so it can be played repeatedly.

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Unmatched – LOTS of stuff…

There are a whole bunch of Unmatched things coming down the pike, so we’ll cover them in order (of my choosing… :)

Battle of Legends, Volume Three

After several years, Restoration is releasing the third and last installment of the Battle of Legends series. Volume One was released in 2019 and Two in 2021. Volume Three is the last, as Restoration didn’t want anyone to think they needed to buy the first two before getting the third – they’re all fine as stand-alone games. Number three was released at Gen Con and has four new champions and a double-sided board.

Loki likes to put his own cards into the opponent’s hand/deck. Blackbeard has a dubloon coin he can use to get extra actions but he has to pay it to his opponent who can give it back in order to cancel some of Blackbeard’s actions. Chupacabra is a heavy hitter. One of its more powerful cards is a 0-strength card that takes on double the value of the opponent’s card. All three characters were submitted to an Unmatched deck-design contest and were runner-ups. The fourth character is Pandora. She has a box she keeps opening (bet you didn’t see that coming) but the end result is that she has a bit of a push-your-luck mechanic that she can use.

Unmatched: Lee vs Ali

Coming this fall is a two-character box containing Bruce Lee and Muhammad Ali. Bruce Lee was released long ago but became a highly sought item due to its rarity. It is faithfully reproduced here, but the character has a new miniature sculpt to distinguish it from the original printing.

Unmatched Adventures: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles

As a big cooperative gameplay fan, I’m glad to see another Unmatched Adventures title. The Adventures games have four playable characters with which to battle as normal, but the game is packaged up together with a host of enemies to fight instead of each other. Fight off either Krang or take down Shredder with the help of your buddies. Lots of TMNT flavor in the game. I believe there is also an expansion that will give you everything required to use Krang or Shredder as playable characters in your Unmatched battles. Look for the turtles to appear sometime Q4 of this year.

Unmatched: Cobble & Fog (reprint)

Released early in the Unmatched line, Cobble & Fog has been “retired” for awhile but is now back in a reprint by popular demand. Play as Sherlock (and Watson), Dracula (and his sisters), the Invisible Man, and Jekyll & Hyde. The reprint should come out some time in 2026.

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Unmatched: Stars and Stripes

One of the next releases (in 2026) has a ‘merica theme. Rosie the Riveter, George Washington (in spymaster mode), and Wyatt Earp are all from the design contest. I’m told Rosie the Riveter is highly anticipated as it was the winner of the contest, while Wyatt and George were runners-up. John Henry was developed in-house I believe. This will be the last Unmatched release with characters from that earlier design competition.

Unmatched Hellboy coming soon

Just a teaser for now, but there will be a Hellboy themed Unmatched release. It will probably be a single box release, coming out sometime in 2026.