Berserk (card game)

Berserk ^[a] is a collectible card game developed and published by Hobby World. It was originally released in 2003, and ran until its closure in 2015. The game was relaunched in 2023.^[1]

An English-language release of one of the game's boxed sets, Berserk: War of the Realms, was successfully funded through Kickstarter in 2013.^[2]

In Berserk players take on the roles of duelling wizards, called "Ungars". The game is played on a battlefield divided into 30 squares, arranged into a 5x6 grid. Each player has a deck of 30 to 50 cards, as well as gold and silver crystals to recruit an army. To start the game, players take a hand of 15 cards from their shuffled deck, and spend their crystals to pay the cards' prices. Adding cards of different elements into the army causes penalties to the amount of crystals the player can use. Then players place their armies on their respective halves of the field, and alternately take turns, making actions with their cards, aiming to destroy the opponent's army.

Most cards in the game represent fantasy creatures, and possess three basic parameters - life, movement, and basic strike. The basic strike is written in the X-Y-Z format, from weak to strong. Attacking with a basic strike is only possible on an adjacent target, and requires both players to roll dice, with the outcome depending on who rolled a higher number, and the difference between them. The attacker is then "exhausted", and the card is turned sideways to show it can no longer act or move this turn. When a card can't fight back, whether due to being exhausted or to the properties of the attack (such as being ranged or magical) only the attacker rolls the dice. However, it's possible to defend a card from a basic strike by selecting a protector - a non-exhausted ("alert") card that's adjacent to both the attacker and the card being protected. Dealt wounds are then marked with tokens, while exhausted creatures become alert again at the start of the player's turn.^[3]

Aside from the basic attack, many creatures possess special abilities, such as archers being able to shoot from afar. Using some abilities often causes the card to become exhausted, while others activate automatically on certain conditions. Some abilities work only on cards with a certain Class, which represents the creature's race or allegiance.

Berserk originated in 1996, when Maksim Istomin returned from a trip the United States with several cards of Magic: The Gathering, and shown them to his friend Ivan Popov. Not knowing the rules, the two were nevertheless inspired be the artworks and the general idea of card games, and started drawing their own cards in the imitation. After some time, Istomin came up with the basic rules for the game, which were then further refined by both of them. The name "Berserk" was also chosen during this time.^[4]

After graduating, the friends went their separate ways, but by 2003, once again looking at the success of Magic: The Gathering, which by then has already reached Russia, decided to self-publish Berserk. In summer 2003 they founded the "Fantasy World" company, and started preparing the game for release. Aiming to broaden their audience, Istomin and Popov reached out to the popular writer Nick Perumov, who edited the game's lore and gave a permission to use his name on the boxes free of charge.^[5] The game was launched in November 2003, becoming the first Russian CCG to reach the market.^[6]

In 2010 the design of the game's cards was updated. However, the card back wasn't changed and old cards remained legal.^[7] By 2011 the game had 16 sets and over 4000 unique cards.

In October 2015 Berserk was cancelled, and succeded by a different game, called Berserk: Heroes.^[8] However, in 2023 the game was rebooted. The reboot retains most of the original's mechanics, and many of the old cards have been reprinted with slightly updated design.^[9]

Berserk has a series of four novels, published in 2008-2009. The series was cancelled due to low sales.^[10]

The game was also adapted into a series of browser games.