Undaunted publisher Osprey’s board game operation to be sold off by owner Bloomsbury Publishing

Osprey Games, the UK publisher of tabletop titles including the critically acclaimed Undaunted series, is shutting down its board and card games operation to refocus on wargames and RPGs.

A statement from the company said Osprey’s owner, the multinational book giant Bloomsbury Publishing, had made the “difficult decision” to sell the board and card game line as part of a “strategic refocusing” on book publishing, adding that the move was “not a decision taken lightly”.

The company said it would not commission any new board or card games, but would continue to release, sell and license upcoming games according to its existing schedules while Bloomsbury hunts for a new owner for its board games.

BoardGameWire understands from two sources that Bloomsbury hopes to find a buyer willing take on the existing board and card game team in addition to its catalogue of titles, but the firm is yet to publicly comment on the sale process.

Osprey Games was launched in 2015 as part of Bloomsbury arm Osprey Publishing, which had a decades-long history of creating military and historical information and reference books before beginning to publish wargaming rulebooks in 2008.

The gaming arm’s early successes included Peer Sylvester’s The King is Dead and The Lost Expedition, as well as popular titles such as Hal Duncan and Ruth Veevers’ design Cryptid and the second edition of Martin Wallace’s London.

Those releases were followed by the high-profile success of the Undaunted series of deckbuilding wargames from David Thompson and Trevor Benjamin and the Imperium games from Nigel Buckle and Dávid Turczi.

Osprey also gained a reputation for taking chances on a range of titles with intriguing mechanisms and designs, such as Sylvester’s area control and trick-taking hybrid Brian Boru, highly asymmetric area control title Crescent Moon, card-based strategic wargame Battalion: War of the Ancients and small-box, quick-playing conflict title General Orders: World War II.

Speaking to BoardGameWire, Sylvester said the sale news had come as “a bit of a bombshell”, adding that he wasn’t aware of any problems at Osprey which pointed to a possible sale.

He said, “I dont think the decision has anything to do with how the games have sold. From what I see, there are some strong titles, like The King is Dead (which is still selling well), Undaunted, and apparently also Lost Expedition. So it’s a decision made from the parent-parent-company at Bloomsbury.

“Working with Osprey was perhaps the defining moment of my ‘career’ as a game designer. First: they always had great developers there, which was fun to work with. Brian Boru wouldn’t be as good as it (hopefully) is without the team at Osprey.

“Also, Lost Expedition was turned into a hit partly because of the great idea to hire [comics creator and illustrator] Garen Ewing. So they elevated my games, but they also published them in the first place, which helped me getting a name and contact in the industry.

“I really don’t know if I would continue working on games as much as I did, if I wouldn’t have worked with them. So I owe them a lot.

“The news of the potential sale therefore makes me quite sad. I just hope the team keeps being around in some form, so I can keep working with them.”

David Thompson, the co-designer of the Undaunted series and fellow Osprey titles War Story: Occupied France, Line of Fire: Burnt Moon and the General Orders games, told BoardGameWire, “I’ve worked with Osprey for the last 14 years. Over that time, they’ve grown to be like a family to me.

“It was over a decade ago that Duncan Molloy, then the lead of the Osprey Games board game division, took a chance on a fledgling designer and signed what would eventually go on to be Undaunted: Normandy. Over the next decade I had the opportunity to collaborate with Duncan, Filip Hartelius, Anthony Howgego, Jordan Wheeler, Rhys Ap Gwyn, and Luke Evison on the editorial staff.

“Each and every one of them are incredibly talented people, and it was through their shepherding that games like the Undaunted series, General Orders, and War Stories: Occupied France came to be. And I would be remiss if I did not mention Emily Neat, Pete Ward, Benji Corless, Benjamin Thorne, and George Barker from the marketing staff and Gareth Clarke for his graphic design.

“Amazing people, each and every one. Over the years I’ve partnered with about 15 board game publishers, but the folks at Osprey will always hold a special, unique place in my heart.” 

Fellow board game designer Ellie Dix, whose tapestry-themed worker placement design Threaded could prove one of the last published by Osprey Games, said she also did not know what had provoked the decision.

Dix told BoardGameWire, “I’ve loved working with Osprey. They’ve been absolutely brilliant. Honestly a dream to work with. They’ve taken so much care with Threaded and done such a great job to bring it to life. I’m very sad about the decision to sell.”

The news comes a month after Bloomsbury, which has a stock market valuation of almost £500m, announced it was “streamlining its structure for further growth”, which included a reorganisation of the company’s editorial divisions and the loss of about 55 jobs.

That restructuring follows Bloomsbury’s sales doubling from £185m to £361m over the last five financial years, with profits more than doubling to £48.8m in the same time.

No mention of Osprey was made in the restructuring announcement, or in Bloomsbury’s interim results announced in October last year, which revealed revenues of £160m and profits of £24m in the six months to August 2025.

Osprey Games’ slate of releases for 2026 is currently set to include Undaunted 2200: Revolution, Crab Rage and two Warriors of Athena titles, while the company will be at UK Games Expo later this month demoing Threaded, Flip Pick Towers and Rattlesnake.