Frosthaven is the sequel to Gloomhaven, developed by Snapshot Games under the leadership of Julian Gollop.
Frosthaven, the digital reimagining of Isaac Childres’s titan of a board game, will open its gates to PC players in July, when Snapshot Games and publisher Arc Games launch the Early Access version.
Turning cardboard legend into pixels was almost inevitable: the tabletop original raised more than $12 million on Kickstarter in 2020, becoming the platform’s most‑funded board‑game campaign and leaving retailers scrambling for shelf space.
The studio behind the conversion is Snapshot Games in Sofia, led by designer Julian Gollop, whose résumé stretches from the original X‑COM to Phoenix Point, while Childres himself advises on mechanics and lore.
Arc Games is publishing in partnership with Asmodee and Cephalofair Games, ensuring the project stays faithful to the source while reaching Gollop’s strategy‑minded audience.
Early Access will deliver roughly one‑third of the full campaign: six core classes and two unlockables, 35‑plus tactical scenarios spread across the opening acts, complete single‑player and online co‑op support, and the fledgling outpost that every party must defend and expand.
Steam’s listing confirms that content drops are planned at three‑month intervals until the 1.0 launch.
The starting roster mirrors the board game’s diversity, Banner Spear’s formation fighting, Boneshaper’s undead summons, the rhythm‑driven Blinkblade, the dual‑form Geminate, the stalwart Drifter, and the shadow‑walking Deathwalker, while later updates will splice in the remaining classes.
Snapshot is preserving the card‑driven combat system intact, so every turn is still a fraught puzzle of tempo, hand management, and exhaustion.
The heart of that puzzle is a simultaneous‑initiative card engine transplanted wholesale from the tabletop. Each hero carries a bespoke deck of ability cards; picking two per round forces players to juggle movement, attacks, elements, and timing while knowing every discarded or burned card inches the party toward fatigue‑based defeat.
On PC, the mathematics remain unchanged, but animations highlight area templates, line‑of‑sight checks, and status effects in real time, so reading a room of hexes is faster than thumbing through reference sheets at the table.
Between dungeons, the campaign zooms out to the settlement itself. Frosthaven begins as a ramshackle frontier post threatened by Algox raids and bitter seasons; resources salvaged from missions can be spent to erect workshops, potion huts, and defenses that visibly upgrade the town and unlock new perks.
Snapshot’s build keeps the board game’s summer‑and‑winter calendar, so quests, biomes, and even ambient lighting change as months pass, and the studio has confirmed dynamic scenarios set in Metallic Ruins that never made it into the original box.
Alongside the usual keyboard‑and‑mouse controls, the build will stream over NVIDIA GeForce NOW, and the team has partnered with Forteller to pipe the board game’s full voice‑acted narration into the digital version.
Gollop describes the Early Access phase as “just the beginning,” with community feedback expected to shape balance, performance, and even quest design; Snapshot estimates a year‑long cycle, but stresses that cadence will flex in response to player input.
Fans who prefer dice towers to download bars can try the PC build at Gen Con 2025 from July 31 to August 3, where exclusive demos and swag will be waiting at Cephalofair’s booth #1643 and Forteller’s booth #3015 before the doors open back home.
If Snapshot nails its brief, Frosthaven’s uncompromising tactics, seasonal survival loop, and town‑building metagame will finally be playable without a two‑hundred‑page rulebook or heaving crate of minis.
For Gloomhaven veterans, it’s a winter‑world sequel with fresh classes and a sharper engine; for strategy newcomers, it could be the most generous gateway to one of modern tabletop’s biggest success stories, and the first step in bringing Gollop’s brand of thoughtful, punishing combat to a new generation.
Frosthaven is going to debut in early access on July 31, 2025, on PC via Steam and Epic Store.
The entry price is set at $39.99, and a Frosthaven × Gloomhaven Digital bundle will debut the same day, so newcomers can secure both campaigns in one swipe, below the release date trailer. Below is the launch trailer.
