Diplomacy, Boardgame Responsible for Killing Friendships, is Getting a New Edition

Diplomacy, an infamous board game that’s all about backstabbing your friends, is getting a new edition. This week, Renegade Game Studios announced they were publishing a new edition of Diplomacy as part of their new licensing deal with Hasbro. The new edition will come with updated wooden Meeples along with new Quick Start rules so you can start wrecking friendships in the name of winning games a bit quicker. 

Diplomacy is a classic board game first published in 1954 that involves players competing to control Europe at the turn of the 19th century. The game involves two phases, a negotiation phase and a movement phase, with the latter phase occurring simultaneously among all players. The negotiation phase is critical to the game, as players can create alliances either publicly or in secret and decide on a course of action. Of course, nothing said or agreed upon in the negotiation phase is binding, so a large part of the game is deciding who to trust and who to betray. Because of the scheming nature of Diplomacy, the game has something of a reputation for being a friendship-wrecker. Many a player has used their real-world connections against their competitors to come out on top, much to the chagrin or anger of other players. 

Despite its reputation, Diplomacy has been a popular game since its release nearly 70 years ago. In person Diplomacy tournaments are still commonplace and the game even had numerous “play by mail” games that eventually shifted to email. AI programs dedicated to Diplomacy has also been created, which almost certainly will not come back to bite humanity in the future.

Renegade Game Studio is printing a number of other classic Hasbro game as part of a larger licensing deals. Among the games being published by Renegade as part of the deal is Axis & Allies and Acquire. 

The new edition of Diplomacy will be released in August and will cost $45.