Word Forge Games heads to UKGE 2026 with an ambitious rescue mission for Heroes of the Pacific

The tabletop wargaming community is preparing for a major rescue operation at the NEC in Birmingham this weekend. Word Forge Games, a publishing outfit known for picking up the pieces of troubled crowdfunding projects, has officially stepped in to manage the fulfilment of Heroes of the Pacific, a tactical wargame previously left stranded following the financial collapse of its original publisher, Devil Pig Games.

The game, which utilises the mechanics of the Heroes System, will make a major promotional appearance at UK Games Expo 2026.

Operating from the GMS Tabletop stand (Stand 844 in Hall 3), the team will run live demonstrations of the tactical scale system. These demos aim to bridge the gap between the game’s complicated past and its upcoming release window, currently estimated for December 2026. The development cycle represents a cross-border effort, with the foundational mechanics designed in France by the surviving members of the creative team, while final manufacturing is scheduled to take place in China.

The underlying mechanics of Heroes of the Pacific rely on the Heroes System: Tactical Scale, which previously earned an Origins Award for Best Historical Boardgame. The system simulates small-scale military conflicts using a combination of recruitment tiles, grid-based movement, and hidden order tokens. Players manage army construction via specialised command tiles, which introduce variation through the use of specific doctrine cards. The system focuses on tactical friction, using action cards to trigger unpredictable events that interrupt standard movement and firing sequences.

The current campaign serves a dual purpose as both a standard product launch and a community salvation initiative. Word Forge Games has imported backer data from the original, failed crowdfunding campaign. This structural change allows previous contributors who lost money to claim the completed project for fees ranging from £1 to £65, depending on their historical pledge levels, while new backers enter the ecosystem at the £100 tier. This tiered entry has sparked debate regarding the cost breakdown of independent fulfilment, though the publisher has clarified that the project will completely bypass traditional retail channels.

Beyond the core historical wargame, the presentation line-up includes a substantial slate of adjacent tabletop properties. Elfling Games will be demonstrating AWRY the Forest alongside their educational roleplaying games, Pirates in a Barrel and Greeks in a Horse. Concurrently, the Nightfall Games design team will be present on-site to showcase eight new roleplaying game releases, including SLA Industries 2nd Edition, Savage SLA, Demon Dog, and Musketeers vs Cthulhu.

Word Forge Games issued a statement regarding the production ethos and structural reality of the rescue project:

The Heroes of Pacific set will be a limited print run specifically to fulfil this campaign with a surplus made to cover transit damages, etc.. Any excess product not used for this will be sold on our website, on future crowdfunding campaigns, at shows or to interested shops. The products we make for this campaign are designed in France and will be manufactured in China.”