Monolith Arena Is an Unfortunate Flop
230In 2018, Portal Games released Monolith Arena, a board game that's the successor to Neuroshima Hex 3.0. Monolith Arena has a ton going for it, but spectacularly failed when it hit the tabletop gaming landscape. A shame, seeing as Neuroshima Hex 3.0 took SPIEL/Essen game fair by storm, and Monolith Arena is essentially just the same game but for an American release.
So went wrong with this game that had much love and care put into it? Monolith Arena is by no means a bad game, yet it epically failed despite having so much going for it. Not to say that the game's perfect by any means, but there's still some glaring issues like the 3-4 player variant (multiplayer) being imbalanced and competing with card games like YuGiOh and Magic the Gathering in player count and time slot.
Then on top of all that, Neuroshima Hex still exists, and you can just buy that and its expansions if you want more content. It also got completely overshadowed by the success of Detective: A Modern Crime Board Game, which was released by Portal Games in the same year. Monolith Arena definitely struggles to find its place within the board game hobby as a result.
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