Romantasy has conquered bookstores, bestseller lists, and BookTok, turning romantically inclined dragons, fae, and assorted dangerously attractive magical men into an enormous publishing business.
Apparently, dominating the bookshelf wasn’t enough. One of the genre’s most popular series is coming for your board game shelf, too.
This fall, Sarah J. Maas’ A Court of Thorns and Roses is getting its own original strategy game: A Court of Thorns and Roses: Fate and Favor. Publisher Goliath Games plans to release the game this October for $24.99, with a Target-exclusive edition and a separate bookseller variant also on the way.
Strategy and politics take center stage
Rather than simply dressing up an existing board game in ACOTAR imagery, Fate and Favor is built around the politics of Prythian itself. Players take control of a High Lord or High Lady representing one of the realm’s seven Courts — Night, Day, Dawn, Winter, Summer, Spring, or Autumn — and compete for influence.
- The original strategy game is centered on alliances, shifting loyalties, character abilities, and fate tokens.
- Up to seven players can represent Prythian’s seven Courts — Night, Day, Dawn, Winter, Summer, Spring, and Autumn.
- A Court of Thorns and Roses: Fate and Favor launches this October for $24.99, with standard, Target-exclusive, and bookseller editions planned.
Goliath hasn’t revealed the complete rules yet, but the basic pitch should sound familiar to anyone who has read the book series and has watched alliances come and go, over and over again. Players will forge alliances of their own, navigate shifting loyalties, and encounter familiar characters (preview images include Elain, Lucien, and Cresseida), locations, and events along the way. Character abilities, Court powers, event cards, and “shifting fate tokens” will all factor into the competition.
It sounds less like a sprawling fantasy war game and more like a lighter social strategy game.
Fate and Favor isn’t Goliath’s first attempt at translating a massively popular romantasy series to the tabletop. The company also makes Fourth Wing: Rise of the Wingleader, based on Rebecca Yarros’ Empyrean series. That game sends players to Basgiath War College, where they compete for prestige in the Riders Quadrant.
There’s a lot more ‘ACOTAR’ coming
The board game is arriving at a particularly busy time for A Court of Thorns and Roses. After a five-year wait since A Court of Silver Flames, Maas is releasing two new installments in quick succession: A Court of Thorns and Roses book 6 arrives Oct. 27, followed by book 7 on Jan. 12, 2027.
And while the long-in-development ACOTAR TV series at Hulu is officially dead, that might not be the end of Prythian’s screen ambitions. Maas revealed earlier this year that she has regained the adaptation rights to her work, saying she wants greater creative control over any future version. For now, however, she says her focus is on the books.