Steve Jackson Games Announces The Return Of ‘Fighting Fantasy’ To The US
by Anton Kromoff
Welcome to the table,
When I was a kid, one of our classrooms had three library shelves that seemed impossibly tall. I was a child under the age of ten so in truth, they could have been anywhere from four to forty feet and I would have barely clocked the difference. What I did know was that all the cool fantasy books were tucked on the shelves closest to the floor and easy for me to get. Also, the majority of the well-worn, dime-store-sized books were rad beyond reason.
The majority of these books were Fighting Fantasy books penned by game designers Sir Ian Livingstone and the UK’s Steve Jackson. For those who have not played around with Fighting Fantasy, they are solo adventure books that blend nonlinear narratives with dice-rolling tabletop mechanics. It’s akin to a choose-your-own-adventure book, but you also get to roll dice along the way, feeling more like a fusion of the reading experience with TTRPG than most other books of their kind did. They were super cool and just the mention of titles like The Warlock of Firetop Mountain and City of Thieves hits me full force like a nostalgia bomb in the chest.
So I’m thrilled to report that these books are returning to the US thanks to a historic 50-book publishing collaboration with Steve Jackson Games! The first books in the series will be available in early 2025.
Fighting Fantasy debuted with The Warlock of Firetop Mountain in 1982. Since then, over 20 million copies of the series have been sold worldwide. In Fighting Fantasy, players embark on a solo adventure where their decisions and dice rolls determine the outcome of the story. This combination of nonlinear narrative and classic tabletop action sets the series apart from other gamebook franchises. Fighting Fantasy co-creators Livingstone and the US’s Steve Jackson stated how thrilled they were to sign a US publishing agreement for Fighting Fantasy with Steve Jackson Games.
Livingstone said, “To have a new publisher in the USA is a special moment in the history of Fighting Fantasy. We have known Steve Jackson for more than 40 years, having distributed Steve Jackson Games in the 1980s when we owned Games Workshop. Steve also wrote three fantastic Fighting Fantasy books which caused a lot of confusion at the time when people didn’t realize there were two Steve Jacksons! We look forward to exciting times ahead in the USA for new and existing Fighting Fantasy fans.”
For those of you who may be slightly confused, Steve Jackson (US) is the rad creator of Munchkin and GURPS, super important games in the landscape of gaming, and honestly one of the kindest most radical to talk to guys in all of gaming. Steve Jackson (UK) I have not had the chance to sit across from yet, but he is also a titan of the industry and co-founder of Games Workshop. So these two coming together along with Sir Ian Livingstone, an actual Sir — co-founder of Games Workshop and Eidos Interactive — is like making some kind of super-group of some of the most influential giants in the gaming world.
I am thrilled this is happening and beyond excited to see what is coming next because … this feels like a fever dream. All I know for now is that the first five books will be released in early 2025, with an additional five volumes later that year and I for one could not be happier that this is happening.
Until next time, strap in, the stars are aligning and the great old ones (and I say that with respect and awe) are rising to spread their good gaming cheer across the world.
