Popular board game Gloomhaven enters Early Access

Gloomhaven, the most highly rated game on BoardGameGeek, is a dungeon-crawler with a campaign that involves playing multiple games then opening secret envelopes containing new rules, placing stickers on the board that reflect your actions, and generally evolving it over the course of a campaign. It's a bit like Risk Legacy or the many games like it.

The videogame version, being published by Asmodee Digital, is now in Early Access. The current version lets you play in a roguelike Adventure Mode with a selection of four characters, basically testing out its combat. There's also a new weapon durability rule just for this mode that simulates wear and tear on your gear.

Developers Flaming Fowl say it will be in Early Access for "at least 9-12 months as we want to work side by side with the community to create more new features and unique content, including that which doesn’t already exist within the board game."

Campaign Mode and multiplayer co-op will come with the full launch.

Here's our list of the best cooperative board games.

Jody's first computer was a Commodore 64, so he remembers having to use a code wheel to play Pool of Radiance. A former music journalist who interviewed everyone from Giorgio Moroder to Trent Reznor, Jody also co-hosted Australia's first radio show about videogames, Zed Games. He's written for Rock Paper Shotgun, The Big Issue, GamesRadar, Zam, Glixel, Five Out of Ten Magazine, and Playboy.com, whose cheques with the bunny logo made for fun conversations at the bank. Jody's first article for PC Gamer was about the audio of Alien Isolation, published in 2015, and since then he's written about why Silent Hill belongs on PC, why Recettear: An Item Shop's Tale is the best fantasy shopkeeper tycoon game, and how weird Lost Ark can get. Jody edited PC Gamer Indie from 2017 to 2018, and he eventually lived up to his promise to play every Warhammer videogame.