Steamforged crowdfunding concerns grow as updates dry up, refund requests go unresolved

Steamforged Games is facing mounting criticism from crowdfunding backers over unresolved refunds and dwindling updates across its undelivered projects, in the wake of the publisher cutting about a third of its workforce and refocusing towards its Warmachine miniatures line earlier this year.

BoardGameWire reported in June that the UK-based company, which made its name adapting video games such as Dark Souls into multi-million-dollar board game Kickstarters, was reducing its crowdfunding activity following a second set of redundancies in three years.

That left Steamforged with nine campaigns with outstanding fulfilment obligations, which together raised almost £19m including late pledges. The biggest of those is Monster Hunter World: Iceborne, which pulled in almost £6.3m from almost 15,000 backers and was originally estimated to be delivered almost two years ago, in November 2024.

Steamforged said in a Kickstarter update in January this year that it was aiming to deliver the title to all regions in July, but has provided just two updates since.

The first, in April, said things were “back up and running following Chinese New Year” and promising “more substantial updates” in the coming months, while another at the end of July read:

“We’d like to start by apologising for the lack of a formal update recently. We had intended to have concrete fulfilment information ready for you this month, but this update is waiting on some key information from partners which is still pending.

“In the meantime, we wanted to let you know we are working hard behind the scenes and will have an update to share as soon as we possibly can.”

That lack of communication about the status of projects has been repeated across Steamforged’s other outstanding crowdfunds, which include the £3.2m Helldivers 2 campaign, the £1.8m-raising Elden Ring: Rot & Sorcery and £1.2m Hearts of Iron: The Board Game.

Its other unfulfilled campaigns include the US production and shipping of Horizon Forbidden West: Seeds of Rebellion and Euthia: Cruel Frost, both of which were postponed due to tariffs uncertainty last year, and the second wave of its P3 Paints crowdfund, which has been delayed by up to a year due to a production issue with the metallic colours.

Campaign	Funding including late pledges	Initial expected delivery date
Monster Hunter World: Iceborne	£6,261,436	November 2024
Helldivers 2	£3,239,140	October 2026
Horizon Forbidden West: Seeds of Rebellion	£2,117,290	May 2025*
Elden Ring: Rot & Sorcery	£1,839,406	July 2027
Euthia: Cruel Frost	£1,446,056	November 2025*
Hearts of Iron: The Board Game	£1,240,053	June 2026
Terra Mystica Special Edition	£1,055,530	April 2027
Bardsung: Tale of the Forsaken Glade	£910,735	April 2026
P3 Paints Wave 2	£720,817	June 2026
Total	£18,830,463

Steamforged’s sparse status updates have led to rising discontent from backers across the comment sections of its crowdfunds and on its official Discord channel, which members say has been abandoned by company staff since the refocus towards Warmachine.

Backers across those channels are now questioning whether their games will ever arrive, with some reporting waits of weeks or months for responses to refund requests. Multiple backers have now turned to PayPal disputes and credit card chargebacks to recover their money.

At least one of Steamforged’s commercial partners has also expressed concerns. Hearts of Iron IP owner Paradox Interactive confirmed in June that it was in contact with Steamforged and working to ensure customers received their games as soon as possible.

Three months later, Paradox Development Studio Gold’s studio manager described the situation as “truly unfortunate”, saying the project “seemed to be going well, until it wasn’t” and that “it’s not a fast process by any means, but solutions are being discussed”.

A spokesperson for Paradox told BoardGameWire earlier this week, “Paradox has been closely tracking the progress of the Hearts of Iron board game. We are in talks with Steamforged Games to find the best way to get the game completed.

“We are not ready to comment on or commit to a specific course of action on the situation at Steamforged.”

A spokesperson for Feuerland Games, the publisher of Terra Mystica which teamed up with Steamforged for the special edition crowdfund, declined to comment on the situation to BoardGameWire.

Multiple sources who spoke to BoardGameWire in June on condition of anonymity said the latest Steamforged staff cuts affected departments including the creative, game design, production, project management, QA, marketing and commercial teams – adding that they feared the cutbacks would lead to problems delivering long-term projects.

But Steamforged told BoardGameWire at the time that the “vast majority” of creative work on its crowdfunded board games was complete, described the staff reduction as “carefully considered”, and said the company “retain[s] both the internal resource and the external capabilities needed to deliver on our commitments”.

BoardGameWire has attempted to contact Steamforged CEO Rich Loxam multiple times across August, September and October about the ongoing situation at the publisher, and to ask questions about refunds, production and delivery schedules and whether the restructuring had affected the company’s ability to complete its existing projects – but has received no response.

Loxam previously told BoardGameWire during Steamforged’s Terra Mystica Special Edition campaign last November that “backers need to feel heard, valued, and understood, which is why we spend so much time in the comments”.

Reflecting on the difficult fulfilment of Dark Souls: The Board Game, Loxam said in a 2022 blog post that one of Steamforged’s “bigger mistakes” had been handling problems “behind closed doors” and only speaking publicly when it felt there was something important to say.

“We were wrong,” he wrote, adding that Steamforged had “learned the hard way that transparency with supporters, backers, and fans is always the right choice”, and promising to communicate as much as possible to build trust and its reputation.

Steamforged signalled a change in its approach following June’s disclosure of the redundancies, telling BoardGameWire that “in the past, we would post updates once-a-month even during quieter periods for a project”.

“Moving forward, our focus is on providing key updates,” it added.

But the sharp decline in communication has extended beyond crowdfunding updates, with several of Steamforged’s public community channels now restricted or, like the Discord, no longer actively used by staff.

Comments are disabled on Steamforged’s YouTube videos – although the company has not uploaded anything to the channel for eight months – while posts on its Facebook page currently carry a notice saying it has “limited who can comment on this post”.

Despite the absence of staff activity on the Steamforged Discord channel, employees have remained active in the company’s dedicated Warmachine server – where the company has told users not to raise questions about its outstanding crowdfunds.

In a September 23 message on the Warmachine Discord, Steamforged’s head of marketing Chynna-Blue Perkins acknowledged that crowdfunding backers were turning to the server for answers, but said it was not the appropriate place to discuss the company’s outstanding projects.

She wrote, “As much as I understand going where you can to seek answers, I am going to have to draw a line under future Kickstarter queries in this server.

“Everyone’s been respectful considering the topic at hand, and I appreciate that, but this is a Warmachine server and it isn’t the right place for crowdfunding queries.

“The campaign pages are where any and all updates will be shared. I wish I could give you more information, but even if I could, this wouldn’t be the place for it.”

The reduction in communication has left backers increasingly having to divine for themselves exactly what is happening at Steamforged, with discussions in its Discord ranging from questions about whether to withdraw from campaigns and advice on procuring refunds, to speculation about the company’s financial stability.

Backer concerns around the latter were exacerbated at the beginning of last month when Companies House, the UK government agency responsible for company registrations, began compulsory strike-off proceedings against Steamforged Games and its parent company due to their overdue accounts, which were due on June 30.

Steamforged posted to its Facebook two days later:

We’re aware some of you have seen a First Gazette notice relating to Steamforged Games, and we’re sorry for any concern it’s caused.

This is a routine notice Companies House issues when a filing is overdue. Our filing was delayed as a result of the company restructuring work we announced earlier this year and is now being resolved.

To be clear, all business activities are continuing as normal.

The strike-off proceedings were discontinued by Companies House four days later, although Steamforged’s accounts are still listed as overdue on the agency’s website.

While the publisher’s latest accounts remain unavailable, data from Steamforged investor Foresight offers some insight into the company’s recent performance.

The investment house cut the valuation of its Steamforged holdings by almost 74% in the first half of 2026 across its Foresight VCT and Enterprise VCT investment vehicles, from £3.68m to just over £960,000 – although that does not represent the valuation of Steamforged as a whole.

Foresight, which invested £5m in Steamforged in 2019 across those vehicles and a third investment fund, said in an end of June update that the publisher had experienced “a few disappointing crowdfunding campaigns over the last 12 months” and was looking to transition away from that part of the market to focus on its higher-margin Iron Kingdoms business.

Steamforged picked up Warmachine – which is set in the Iron Kingdoms IP – P3 Paints and the Iron Kingdoms RPG from Privateer Press in 2024.

A spokesperson for Steamforged told BoardGameWire in June that Warmachine and P3 Paints revenue had tripled in the prior 21 months, despite significant stock constraints in its first year of ownership due to heavy demand.

They said at the time “Demand has been high and we’ve scaled production to meet it. Our US production capacity for Warmachine has increased by 70% since last March, with a 25% increase in Europe since August and new production facilities introduced in the UK in February 2026.”

But communication problems have also extended to P3 Paints. Backers of the Wave 2 crowdfund have complained about a lack of updates and unanswered refund requests, after Steamforged revealed in May that production problems with metallic colours had pushed expected fulfilment from June 2026 into 2027.

Steamforged has so far completed non-US fulfilment of Horizon Forbidden West: Seeds of Rebellion and Euthia: Cruel Frost this year, as well as the pre-order campaign for 6: Siege – which it picked up from now-liquidated crowdfunding major Mythic Games early last year.

The last crowdfunding campaigns substantially or fully completed by the publisher are all from last year, including Elden Ring: The Board Game, the original P3 Paints campaign and the Iron Kingdoms-set Strangelight Workshop RPG.