Beaver: Born to Rewild - Announcement Post

Hi everyone,

It's Matt and Zara here! We're so excited to finally share what we've been working on and what comes next after Kavango: our next major game is in the works, it's called Beaver: Born to Rewild.

Overview

The setting sun sparkles on the water, reflecting a rosy glow on clouds which canopy your new lochside home. The surrounding mountains, still snow-topped from winter, carry a crisp alpine air that mingles with the scent of ancient pine forests. 

Your ancestors passed down stories of the raw beauty of the Scottish Highlands but it's been over 400 years since any of your kind were allowed to return to your native land. You feel the presence of the landscape stirring in your soul - a feeling of homecoming tinged with a sense of loss. Where are the ospreys that should be hunting overhead? Why can’t you hear the cry of wildcats echoing on the dusk air? So much life is absent from this magical place and it's your job to help it return. 

A last glance at the mountains and you're ready. Time to get to work, not a minute to lose. You were, after all, brought here for a reason - you were born to rewild.

How you play

You'll each play as a family of beavers reintroduced into the Scottish Highlands. Your mission is to rewild and restore a wetland habitat. 

As you gather resources to build and grow your dam, you'll engineer a new wetland ecosystem and strategically create habitats for a range of native animals. Gain cascading rewards as your dam grows, earn points each time you introduce a new species, and win big if you can build an abundance of food for Scotland's most iconic and endangered predators.

The beaver family with the most points at the end of the game wins.

Why beavers, why now

If you read our last post, you'll know this game is inspired by our own lived experience. Beavers haven't lived wild in Scotland for over 400 years and right now, that's actually changing. Zara is a trustee of The Beaver Trust, a UK charity working to reintroduce beavers across the country, and we live near one of the pioneering reintroduction sites in the Highlands.

Watching beavers return to a landscape that's missed them for four centuries (and seeing, firsthand, how quickly they start rebuilding an ecosystem around them) is exactly the kind of real-world hope we wanted Kavango to capture. Beaver: Born to Rewild lets you experience that same restoration story, this time through the story of rewilding in Britain. 

When can you play it?

Beaver: Born to Rewild will launch on crowdfunding in Spring 2027. We'll be sharing more on gameplay, art, and some fun events we have planned over the next couple of months. 

Want the full story of how we started making games in the first place? Read our story here.

Thanks for reading,
Matt and Zara 

Matt and Zara are award winning board game designers. They both have extensive professional experience in conservation and sustainability. Matt is a chartered civil and structural engineer and Zara is a policy specialist.