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Cyanide now plays in Blood Bowl

Games Workshop gives license to its fantasy football game to Loki developer; Chaos League games folded, title assigned to Games Workshop.

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When people think of fantasy football, they often think of sports fans sitting around their living rooms, studying the tickers for NFL stats while stuffing their faces with Cheetos. Fans of tabletop games, on the other hand, think of Blood Bowl, the board game that satirized American pro football by exchanging traditional athletes with fantasy characters, such as orcs, dwarves, and goblins.

Today Games Workshop, the creator of Blood Bowl, announced that the franchise will hop off the tabletop and onto the desktop, or perhaps other gaming platforms. The UK-based game company has signed over the license to make video games based on Blood Bowl to French developer Cyanide. The terms of the deal were not disclosed, and no Blood Bowl products, or a publisher, have been announced yet.

Cyanide shouldn't have too much trouble putting elves and trolls on the line of scrimmage. The company has developed the Chaos League series, which was admittedly heavily inspired by and looks an awful lot like Blood Bowl. Whatever contention Games Workshop had with Cyanide's sincerest form of flattery has apparently been swept under the rug, with the help of some cash.

In a statement today, Games Workshop says, "Any differences between Games Workshop and Cyanide have been amicably settled for an undisclosed sum..." As part of the deal, Games Workshop has also been assigned the title to Chaos League, but the franchise will likely go the way of the now-defunct XFL, as there are no plans to make further Chaos League games.

31 Comments

  • NemaLive

    Posted Aug 4, 2007 11:00 pm GMT

    Looks like its going to be released late Q1 2008, woohoo not long now

    Cheers rejected, I know about fumbbl

  • Rejected777

    Posted Aug 3, 2007 6:13 am GMT

    If you like Blood Bowl, there's a Java version out that is a lot of fun. http://fumbbl.com/, free of charge. Just download, make a team, and play =D

  • NemaLive

    Posted Jul 21, 2007 11:24 am GMT

    looks like Bloodbowl has a distributor- this is from one of the team Focus Home Interactive (who's then dealing with various distributors)

  • NemaLive

    Posted Jul 9, 2007 9:07 am GMT

    They have some info on the cyanide forums, very little mind you. There will be a console and a PC version if GW give the nod

  • NemaLive

    Posted Apr 20, 2007 7:31 am GMT

    doh still no further news about this gem

  • jazger

    Posted Jul 27, 2006 7:33 am GMT


    Chaos League:Sudden Death is still can still be bought & downloaded, from Cyanides Web site. (sudden death is version 2 of the basic Chaos league) Will run you about 29.99 in Euros, so us US folks got to use a credit card and hope the xchange rate is reasonable.

    You can find a playable demo for it on Download.com. (only get 2 races and 1 feild, but computer can use all the races aginst you) Can also find normal Chaos league Demos.. Gamespot even has a Multi-player Demo. (haven't tried it yet)

    I do hope they release an new game now that any legal issue have been bribed away. :p The game looks sweet. got them d/led but time is preventing me from actualy playing them more then a bit.. But what I've seen..

    I like.

  • RazorBat

    Posted Jun 30, 2006 7:41 pm GMT

    Darn it. As a Blood Bowl fan, I so would have picked this game up if I had known about it. Now that Games Workshop is at the reigns, this game can only get better as a true Blood Bowl game on PC. Now if only somebody would re-make Pigskin...

  • hemakm3

    Posted Jun 28, 2006 1:03 pm GMT

    Cool, I would try it.

  • player_leo

    Posted Jun 28, 2006 4:42 am GMT

    Sounds like they 're bringing back the look and feel of Mutant League Football from back in the Genesis days... Sweet !! The game ranked up there with Joe Montana Sports Talk Football !!

  • BewilderedRonin

    Posted Jun 28, 2006 4:34 am GMT

    EA should go ahead and designate a small team to modding and retexturing Madden to make a new Mutant League Football. That'd be awesome! "Kill the Ref!"

  • rynmls

    Posted Jun 28, 2006 12:48 am GMT

    hope it will be good...

  • DrCLos

    Posted Jun 27, 2006 9:58 pm GMT

    This story reminded me of Mutant League Football.
    EA needs to make a sequel of that game.
    I'm not a big sports fan but a game like that would be a welcome in my console.

  • dn3datomiced

    Posted Jun 27, 2006 8:50 pm GMT

    Dammit. How come no one told me about this?! I would totally have played this game.

  • VoggNogg

    Posted Jun 27, 2006 5:33 pm GMT

    For the people who want to familiarize themselves with Blood Bowl, there is a computer game of Blood Bowl that was made back in about '93-'94. Still fun to play, but if you google it, you can find information on it.

  • sabazios

    Posted Jun 27, 2006 4:56 pm GMT

    Yoohoo, this could be fun indeeeed!

  • niasyn

    Posted Jun 27, 2006 4:12 pm GMT

    Yeah wasn't this game called Mutant League Football in the 80(90)s?

  • Nintendoc

    Posted Jun 27, 2006 2:48 pm GMT

    Of all the Games Workshop franchises, BloodBowl has to be one of the oldest and the least popular today, but I guess it could work as a game.

  • comthitnuong

    Posted Jun 27, 2006 2:25 pm GMT

    chaos league doenst look promising

  • seraph_jim

    Posted Jun 27, 2006 1:25 pm GMT

    The GW nerd inside me just wet itself with delight. Nobody in my area even plays Bloodbowl on tabletop anymore. now if you'll excuse me, I need to go get a towel.

  • Stabby

    Posted Jun 27, 2006 1:10 pm GMT

    Chaos League was sooooo fun! But is clearly taken from Blood Bowl... cool about this though...

  • WombatGuy

    Posted Jun 27, 2006 12:48 pm GMT

    I'd pick Blood Bowl over minor yearly Madden "improvements" any day of the week!

  • squarephreak

    Posted Jun 27, 2006 12:39 pm GMT

    If it's anywhere near as good as the Mutant League Sports games from back in the day, I'm all for it. Then we just need a LOTR: Sports line of games.

  • John_of_Fire

    Posted Jun 27, 2006 12:21 pm GMT

    Hey, I may actually buy a football game this generation after all.

    Who needs EA when you have orcs? Wait.... EA will bring back Monster League Football because they have to own all of the market.

  • Kwiksilva

    Posted Jun 27, 2006 12:18 pm GMT

    This could be the next Bltz the league.

  • rokkuman09

    Posted Jun 27, 2006 12:18 pm GMT

    lol

  • SNKrock

    Posted Jun 27, 2006 12:15 pm GMT

    who needs the nfl?

  • Da_Mainman_3

    Posted Jun 27, 2006 12:13 pm GMT

    My brother tends to dip in and out of Games Workshop tabletop games, but I don't think he's ever heard of Blood Bowl before. I'll run this news past him later.

    Personally, I like the idea of parodying a real-life sport in this way, but I'm still not convinced that I'd enjoy any games based on football or rugby. Mario Smash Football may convince me otherwise though, if I ever end up buying it.

  • axia_777

    Posted Jun 27, 2006 12:13 pm GMT

    Now this is a football game I can get into!! BLOOD BOWL!!! Death on the field? You got it! This is the best news in quite a while for sports games of any kind. Now it needs to come to PS3 with online!

  • dekethedog

    Posted Jun 27, 2006 12:05 pm GMT

    I want some Mutant League Football :p

  • diablobasher

    Posted Jun 27, 2006 11:55 am GMT

    AWESOME!

    Chaos league = great

    Blood Bowl = great

    This news = Heart attack

  • hiitzme

    Posted Jun 27, 2006 11:47 am GMT

    Hmm...I don't particularly enjoy sports games but this sounds interesting.

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