by W. Eric Martin

I saw a lot of upcoming games at SPIEL Essen 25, and since Devir consistently presents the most detailed teaser of its yearly release calendar, I'll start with that line-up:

▪️ Cities USA will be a Q1 2026 release from designers Steve Finn and Phil Walker-Harding that follows the model of 2024's Cities. Players "build" one of the eight cities featured in the game, each with their own goals. The building elements will be familiar from the original release, with bridges being a new feature.

Devir plans to release other titles in this line as well, such as Cities España, along with a Q1 2026 "paperback" expansion that packages the eight promo city tiles previously released.


Multiple publishers presented upcoming expansions or bonus game material packaged in paper-style envelopes, which might make these items harder to display in retail outlets, but cheaper than a boxed expansion and easier to store in an existing game. Devir's Matt Hyland said that this item would be available directly from the publisher and would potentially be available via retail.

▪️ Benjamín Amorín's Ace of Spades will hit the retail market once again in late Q1 2026 with updated art and content following cultural consultation after the game's debut at Gen Con 2025 and its subsequent removal from the retail market.

An expansion pack — Ace of Spades: Call of the Zombie — will be released separately.


▪️ As noted in mid-October 2025, in February 2026 Devir will crowdfund Claustrophobia 1692, a new version of Croc's Claustrophobia from 2009.

Hyland says that the rules have been streamlined, with the setting being less "heavy metal" than Monolith's take on the design in 2019's Claustrophobia 1643 and more in line with the original release.



Devir is running its first crowdfunding campaign because Claustrophobia 1692 will be the first game in which it has included miniatures, but the campaign won't feature a ton of stretch goals that add new material, so Hyland expects the published game to be delivered in August 2026.

▪️ Dani Garcia's Gaudí will focus on the three elements that guided architect Antoni Gaudí's career — nature, Catalonia, and God — with cards in these three suits providing immediate scoring, end-of-round scoring, and endgame scoring. Paying the cost of cards will require you to place colored tiles on your player board, with groups of tiles impacting how you score.


▪️ Berlin 1960 is a 4-8 player hidden-role, roleplaying-style experience for wargamers from Virginio Gigli and Flaminia Brasini that's set during the Cold War, with players trying to identify the Soviet and U.S. spies amongst the group in order to complete missions.

Devir plans to debut Berlin 1960 at UK Games Expo 2026.


▪️ 7th Seal is a solitaire dice-management design from Julio Falagan in which you need to break the seven levels of Hell before you get the chance to confront whatever awaits you at the bottom of your descent.


▪️ Devir plans for 7th Seal to be its primary release at Gen Con 2026, with its second new title for that show being Ear Candy, an expansion for Jackie Fox's Rock Hard: 1977 that features new musicians, new managers, and "The Hit List" — a singles chart where players can score extra points based on the performance of their tracks.


▪️ The other titles depicted above are Cities: Downtown, a Steve Finn design that's more abstract than the original Cities while still fitting with that game's aesthetic; three new titles in Devir's "pocket" line: Let's Dance by Abel Molero, Waffle House by Shei S. and Isra C., and NASCARD by Guillem Coll and Ferran Renalias; and En el Abismo, a.k.a. In the Abyss, a solitaire RPG-style gamebook from Pablo Aguilera that will be a little more complex than 2022's In the Ashes.

▪️ Amongst these smaller titles, Devir will release Spanish-language localizations of two titles from Schimdt Spiele: Jacques Zeimet's Do De Li Do and Tobias Tesar's One Round?...which I forgot to pick up while at SPIEL Essen 25. Ah, well, maybe next year.

▪️ At SPIEL Essen 26, Devir will add to its "Kemushi Saga" line of games with Shugendo, a co-design with press-your-luck elements from Alessandro Cuneo and Simone Luciani in which you play cards to build a community with farms, wells, and other elements while trying to avoid seeing too many yōkai.


▪️ Devir's other SPIEL Essen 26 release will be Niraya, another Dani Garcia design, with players being both archeologists that are unearthing elements in a forest from a past civilization and members of that civilization being unearthed, with opportunities for your past and present selves to partner with one another.