Waterworld gets a surprise spiritual successor in board game Flotilla

The polar ice caps have melted, leaving the survivors of humanity floating on large cities constructed from cobbled-together flotsam and jetsam adrift on the flooded Earth.

That’s the setup for upcoming board game Flotilla, but if it sounds familiar there’s probably a good reason for that; it also happens to be the rough outline of the pricey Kevin Costner-starring nineties movie Waterworld.

Flotilla’s post-apocalyptic vision of a drowned Earth is the result of the US’ Castle Bravo nuclear test in 1954, which destroyed Bikini Atoll and ruptured the planet down to the mantle, causing sea levels to rise.

Players enter the watery world as fleet commanders trying to rebuild humanity on its new floating home. To do so, they’ll explore the vast global ocean in search of resources to scavenge and bring back to their people, earning reputation with the guilds in charge of the super-city and gradually expanding the flotilla with the bits and pieces they find.

During play, captains will be able to turn from ‘sinksiders’ looking for scraps to ‘skysiders’ able to build on the flotilla – with the change of role comes a change of gameplay, with players’ components flipping over to enable new actions and abilities for the rest of the game.

The ultimate aim is amass the most influence among the dregs of humanity, leading the way into civilisation’s new era of surviving on the seas.

Flotilla is a collaboration between Onimari designer Michael Mihealsick and Reavers of Midgard creator J.B. Howell, and is due for release this October from WizKids. It’ll play with two to five people in around 90 minutes – making it a good deal shorter than sitting through Waterworld's two-and-a-bit-hour running time.