Battlestar Galactica’s beloved board game is back, but in Arkham Horror form

10.06.2021

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Battlestar Galactica: The Board Game, the classic hidden-role game first published in 2008, is being reskinned for the H.P. Lovecraft-inspired Arkham Horror Files universe. Publisher Fantasy Flight Games announced the project, a new game called Unfathomable, on Thursday in a blog post.

“It has finally been announced!” said Corey Konieczka, who designed the original Battlestar Galactica, on Twitter. “This is the answer to the question I get asked most often. BSG is back baby!”

A board showing the cross section of a ship with green, Cthulhu-inspired monsters in the surrounding ocean. — A low-resolution photo of the game components accompanied today’s announcement.

The original Battlestar Galactica board game followed the premise of the Syfy television series closely. One or more players at the table secretly played the role of a Cylon, surreptitiously working against the actions of the other players. It was a potent mix of thematic event cards and cunning deception that has given the game an extraordinary reputation among hobbyists. Used copies of the original and its expansions — Pegasus, Exodus, and Daybreak — regularly sell for $1,000 or more on the secondary market. New, in-box copies of the base game go for $600 on Amazon.

Unfathomable rolls the clock forward to the year 1913. The action is set aboard a Titanic analogue, the steamship SS Atlantica.

“Its unsuspecting passengers fully anticipated a calm journey to Boston, Massachusetts,” said Fantasy Flight, “with nothing out of the ordinary to look forward to. However, strange nightmares plague the minds of the people aboard the ship every night; rumors circulate of dark shapes following closely behind the ship just beneath the waves; and tensions rise when a body is discovered in the ship’s chapel, signs of a strange ritual littered around the corpse. This voyage began like any other, but now it seems that the Atlantica may never reach its destination.”

Unfathomable is priced at $79.95, and includes several decks of cards as well as a central game board. Unlike Battlestar Galactica, this game does include plastic miniatures. Pre-orders are available now, with copies hitting retail by September. Expect more on June 13 during the Fantasy Flight livestream on YouTube.