The latest entry in Ravensburger’s Villainous game system is almost here, and it’s the perfect activity for board game enthusiasts that are partial to a certain popular franchise that hails from a galaxy far, far, away. Star Wars Villainous: Power of the Dark Side is an exciting and challenging new strategy game for groups of two-to-four players, and Nerds & Beyond had a chance to check it out ahead of its impending release later this month!

Prepare to embrace the dark side with your favorite Star Wars villain. Players start off the game by selecting which villain they’d like to play as, with the choices including Darth Vader, Kylo Ren, General Grievous, Asajj Ventress, and Moff Gideon. Depending on which character is chosen, players will each receive their own customized game board along with two decks of cards. In order to win the game, a player must be the first one to reach their villain’s story-based objective. For example, in order to win as Darth Vader, one must follow a series of steps in order to defeat Luke Skywalker, while Moff Gideon’s goal is to capture Grogu.

Player materials for each villain are specifically targeted toward the Star Wars film or show that the character hails from. Each game board is decorated with locations related to a particular villain, and the character decks — referred to as Villain and Fate decks — include familiar ships, characters, and items such as Han Solo, Obi-Wan Kenobi, the Razor Crest, the Millennium Falcon, the Darksaber, and much more. In order to advance through the game and to utilize actions found on the game boards and in the decks, players will need to earn and spend various physical tokens like Credits, Ambition, and Strength.

Although players have individual game boards and objectives, a key component to winning the game is to also play close attention to each opponent’s moves and hinder their progress as necessary. This can be done by using the Fate decks. When the action is available, players have the option to pull from an opponent’s Fate deck, where they will find cards that can delay a player’s path to victory — such as pulling Poe Dameron or Rey from Kylo Ren’s deck. While collecting the pieces necessary to reach their goals, which can be found in the Villain decks, players will often need to use villain ally cards to defeat heroes from the Fate decks.

In terms of quality, Star Wars Villainous is a finely crafted game complete with unique Villain Movers, soft matte game boards and tokens, beautifully illustrated character decks, a chamber for holding the game pieces, and comprehensive character guides and instructions.

In order to fully enjoy the game and get the most out of it, it’s recommended that players take the time to read the instructions in full and understand the objectives of all characters in play. Star Wars Villainous has a small foot print — it doesn’t require a large play space — but still offers players an elaborate gameplay experience (which is around 40 minutes in length for groups of two and up to 80 minutes for four players). And if the instruction booklet feels daunting, Watch It Played has an extremely helpful video walkthrough of the game here!

In conclusion, Star Wars Villainous is the perfect strategy game for fans of the franchise hoping to take a walk on the dark side. The immersive story-based goals and engaging game mechanics will keep players entertained, focused, and on their toes until a winner emerges victorious.

Need this game, you do. Add it to your collection, you must.

Star Wars Villainous is now available for pre-order from Target and will go on sale nationwide July 31.