Spirit Island set for new publisher as designer declines Flat River renewal, plans complete art overhaul

Spirit Island designer Eric Reuss says he is in talks with a new publisher for the hit cooperative game after opting not to renew its publishing deal with Flat River Group.

Reuss said he expects to be able to license Spirit Island to a new publisher “within the next year or so” according to an update posted to BoardGameGeek and Reddit, adding that dozens of publishers had reached out to express interest in the title and that negotiations with one unnamed company were “going well”.

The announcement provides some clarity over the future of one of modern board gaming’s most widely acclaimed cooperative titles, after more than a year of uncertainty following Flat River Group’s sweeping layoffs at its former publishing arm Greater than Games.

Flat River laid off almost all Greater than Games’ staff and suspended new projects in April 2025, blaming economic pressures stemming from the US tariff crisis.

The private equity-backed company subsequently sold off its subsidiary Synapses Games to ACD Distribution last summer, at the same time as industry veterans Jules Vautour, Colin Young and Danni Loe left Flat River to revive distributor Luma Imports as part of ACD.

That was followed two months ago by Flat River selling the brand name and the rights for the Sentinels of the Multiverse titles to Handelabra Games, a deal which also put the Greater than Games brand back in the hands of two of its founders, Paul Bender and Christopher Badell.

Spirit Island was not part of Handelabra’s deal, however, and was also not part of the revived Greater than Games line-up, company CEO Bender confirmed on a May 12 YouTube livestream celebrating the publisher’s return.

Reuss has now confirmed he decided not to renew Spirit Island’s publishing agreement with Flat River in the wake of its decision to lay off staff at Greater than Games.

He said, “I originally signed Spirit Island with Greater Than Games, which was acquired by Flat River Group around 2021-2022.

“In April 2025, FRG laid off nearly all Greater Than Games staff – the folks I’d been working with – and announced the suspension of all new projects. I submitted my non-renewal thereafter.”

Reuss said his agreement specifies that once Flat River’s licence expires, the company can no longer use the Spirit Island trademark or sell new copies beyond existing inventory.

But he added that ownership of the game’s artwork and graphical assets was “less crystal-clear”, and that negotiations with Flat River to reach a deal over the artwork rights had come to nothing.

He said in the update, “I’d be happy to pay Flat River Group to settle this matter and use the existing art, but what they’re asking for is so much higher than what I’m willing to pay that I have to assume a settlement won’t happen.

“To mitigate legal risk, I’m commissioning completely new non-derivative art, graphical assets, etc.”

He added that he would not consider running a crowdfund from fans to raise money for acquiring the art assets from Flat River, saying, “Given that I don’t feel OK paying that much money, I really don’t feel OK asking Spirit Island fans to pay that much money.”

Reuss said new non-Flat River Group versions of the game would retain the same gameplay, spirits, powers, adversaries and expansions, but with entirely new visual interpretations, promising “vibrant, colorful, representational art”.

Despite the extensive visual overhaul, Reuss stressed that no second edition was currently planned, with only minor rules clarifications and potential balance tweaks currently under consideration.

He said his design priority remains the long-awaited Dahan-focused expansion, although recommissioning Spirit Island’s artwork was likely to delay development of that project.

The designer also confirmed that he has no plans to use generative AI artwork in the project, primarily because he wanted to “collaborate with, support, and celebrate human artists”.

He added in the update, “Ssecondarily because (a) all image-creating GenAI I know of was trained unethically, and (b) while queries aren’t so environmentally terrible as is sometimes asserted, training new models is another story entirely (and using GenAI bolsters demand for training new models).”

He continued “I’m not dogmatically anti-GenAI – I’d love to see ethically trained, environmentally conscientious, explainable, non-toxic, reasonably-secure public-option GenAI. Though that doesn’t address the impact on illustrators and other jobs, so maybe also UBI or something? One can dream.”

Reuss said that although dozens of publishers had expressing interest in Spirit Island since April last year, he added that if negotiations ultimately failed he would self-publish the game himself.

He said, “Spirit Island will continue being published, and I’m going to keep working on making new stuff for it. It’s not going away.”