WizKids has announced the Ascending Empires:  Zenith Edition, a new version of Ian Cooper’s (Seastead, Taktika) 2011 science fiction empire-building board game.  The Zenith Edition will launch in September.

In Ascending Empires, players “flick” their starships to explore new planets, hoping to uncover ancient relics and establish cities and starbases.  Victory points are awarded for occupying planets, building cities, developing new technologies, and completing missions.

The new Zenith Edition updates the game with upgraded components including a neoprene starfield game mat for easier starship flicking and highly-detailed plastic playing pieces.  It allows players to use the “Classic Rules” from the original game, or play with the updated “New Era Rules” that introduce new elements to the game.  The new elements include specialty starships, randomized technology trees, new discovery tokens and mission cards, and the ability to construct powerful megastructures.  New rules for solo play and a cooperative version have also been added.

Ascending Empires:  Zenith Edition comes with 124 plastic miniatures, a two-piece neoprene game board, 32 planet disks, 56 starship disks, 64 cubes, 4 player boards, 4 range rulers, 32 tiles, 150 tokens, and 41 cards.  The game is intended for 1 to 4 players, ages 10 and up, and plays in a little over an hour.  MSRP is $139.99.

Click Gallery below to see components from the game.

At the recent GAMA Expo, WizKids announced a new game based on the Star Trek:  Discovery series (see “GAMA Expo News:  ‘Star Trek:  Discovery – Black Alert’ Incoming”).  The company has also revealed some exclusive HeroClix miniatures for the summer conventions (see “WizKids Reveals Summer Convention Exclusive ‘HeroClix’ Figures for 2023”).