Ares Games continues international distribution expansion through deal with Spanish publisher Draco Ideas

Ares Games has expanded its international distribution business again through a partnership with Spain’s Draco Ideas, bringing the English editions of its games to retailers.

The deal covers games from the company’s two publishing arms, Draco Ideas and Eclipse Editorial, which merged into a single business in 2023.

Ares said distribution of Draco games would begin in December with Viking and Anglo-Saxon territory-building title Dark Kingdoms, the first English-language edition of 2018 release Reconquista, and a second edition of family game RatLand alongside two expansions and a miniatures pack.

The agreement is the latest in a series of distribution partnerships signed by Ares over the past two years, including deals with Armenian publisher Red Cat Games, Italy’s Tabula Games and Czech publisher Albi.

Ares also signed a deal with Dark Horizon Games in July this year to bring its co-operative sci-fi dungeon crawler Earth Under Siege: Flashpoint and three expansions to US retail, with the titles beginning to reach stores last month.

The company has also been extending the geographical reach of its existing distribution business, announcing last December that it would begin supplying titles from five publishers – Galakta Games, Tabula Games, Albi, Nuts! Publishing and Don’t Panic Games – to European retailers and distributors through its Italian warehouse.

That expansion has continued despite the trade disruption caused by US tariffs which prompted Ares to rethink parts of its business model last year, including reducing inventory, becoming more selective about products and increasing direct sales.

Di Meglio told BoardGameWire last December, “We are growing in small steps, but considered how complex is the situation in the US in these days, we are quite happy of this slow but steady progress.”

He added, “The current level of tariffs is not something to be happy about, but manageable. However, we have seen through 2025 that the rates can change abruptly and unexpectedly – this means we must be very careful about which products we pick, more than ever.”

Ares’ distribution partnerships have offered a route into conventional retail for games which previously relied heavily on crowdfunding.

Speaking to BoardGameWire about its Tabula Games partnership in May last year, Di Meglio said the Italian publisher had run successful crowdfunding campaigns, but its games had barely reached retail distribution.

The new Draco deal includes crowdfunded title Dark Kingdoms, a strategy and conquest game set in fifth-century Britain, which will begin being distributed to stores once its Gamefound fulfilment is complete.

That game, which was designed by Marco Antonio del Campo, sees players lead Saxon, Angle, Jute and Briton factions competing for control of territory through resource management, construction and military conquest.

Del Campo also designed Reconquista, originally published in Spanish in 2018, which pits four rival kingdoms against one another for control of the Iberian Peninsula in the 11th century.

The third title, Eduardo Garcia’s RatLand, is a family game in which players compete to grow rival rat colonies while gathering and stealing food. Its second edition will be accompanied by The Conquest of the Port and Automa expansions, alongside a pack of plastic rat miniatures.

Draco Ideas was founded in Spain in 2014 by Luis Álvaro Hernández, initially to publish his own historical battle game ONUS! Rome vs Carthage.

It has since developed into a specialist publisher of historical wargames and strategy games, with Eclipse Editorial covering narrative, adventure and family games.