Asmodee shared details of its new Star Wars: Unlimited, an all-new trading card game, at a launch event last month.

The TCG was created by Asmodee subsidiary Fantasy Flight Games, in partnership with Lucasfilm. The Star Wars: Unlimited game features iconic heroes, villains, ships and settings from all facets of the legendary Star Wars franchise, including movies, TV series, comics, video games and everything in between. The game will launch globally in 2024 and Asmodee hosted its first retailer day in Birmingham to launch the TCG, in addition to sharing its long-term plans and commitments with retail partners and selected media outlets. Toy World went along to find out more.

Before having the chance to play the game for themselves, attendees were given a presentation on the background of the game and where the creators hope it will ultimately lead to. We learned that Davide Bonati, global VP, Hobby, Sales & Strategy, who joined Asmodee three years ago after eight years at Wizards of the Coast, was presented with the draft game by the Fantasy Flight team soon after joining. Davide told the audience: “I thought it was an amazing game and incredibly fun to play. I got together with Jim Cartwright, VP of Product Strategy, to talk about how we were going to transfer the passion and energy we had for the game to the market.”

Most importantly for Davide and the team, one of the pillars of Star Wars: Unlimited is “hobby first”. This means that 90% of all stock will be sold through the specialist toy & hobby retail channel. The team has also come up with an Organised Play programme to support stores from day one.

Davide commented: “We believe that a long-term, successful TCG needs a strong community to support it, and we believe that local toy & hobby stores are the best place to build that community. We want to support specialist retailers because they are our heartland.”

To read about Toy World’s own experience of the game as well as words from Roger Martin, hobby and independent channel director at Asmodee UK, and some retail support bundles on offer, click here for the full article, which appeared in the December edition of Toy World.