Devir unveils The White Castle Duel

The popular board game, The White Castle will be getting a two-player version set to debut at Essen Spiel 2025:

Devir Games reveals a new product in their 2025 lineup: The White Castle Duel. The game offers a new look to The White Castle line, building on the success of best-sellers The White Castle and The White Castle: Matcha. The original game recently cracked the Top 100 of all time ranking of strategy games on BoardGameGeek.

The White Castle Duel is expected to be released in October 2025 at Essen Spiel, and will be available worldwide soon after.

The White Castle Duel is a two-player game in which clans compete for control of foreign trade and technology in the White Heron’s court, part of the iconic Himeji Castle. Trading with newly arrived Portuguese travelers is a key part of the game and although it contains very different mechanics than the original game, it maintains the look and feel of the line.

“With The White Castle Duel, we really forced ourselves to make the game radically different from the beginning, but it leaves you with the sensation of having played a duel of The White Castle. It doesn’t have dice, it doesn’t have bridges, you don’t put members of the clan on the board...everything has the atmosphere, the combos and the tightness of the original, but in a different and new game that’s equally addictive. We play with two players 90% of the time and it’s reflected in this game,” said creators of the game Shei S. & Isra C, also known as Llama Dice.

“It’s a whole new game, offering a different take on life at the Himeji Castle. Gameplay is short and tight, just like the fans love it,” added David Esbrí, Publisher at Devir Contenidos.