A third version of the well-liked Nemesis board game series has been revealed by Awaken Realms. Nemesis: Retaliation, a new standalone expansion of their Nemesis franchise, was announced this week by Awaken Realms. Players will assume the role of Space Marines in the third (and presumably final, according to game designer Adam Kwapiski) instalment as they attempt to defend themselves against the alien lifeforms attacking various spacecraft and space stations. Players will be better prepared to deal with the alien dangers in this instalment, yet it's not a guarantee that they will survive. The prior two instalments concentrated on surviving the alien invasions. Nemesis: Retaliation will also bring in new aliens and weapons for combat. 

For Awaken Realms, the Nemesis franchise has been a significant source of revenue. The initial Nemesis Kickstarter campaign generated close to $3.8 million in funding and even made a cameo on South Park. Nemesis: Lockdown, the second instalment, brought in more than $5 million in 2020. Due to the success of its Kickstarter campaign, Awaken Realms decided to launch its crowdfunding website, Gamefound, which has since become a popular alternative to Kickstarter for many board game publishers. 

One of the new games that Awaken Realms introduced this week was Nemesis: Retaliation. The publisher has revealed a board game adaptation of S.T.A.L.K.E.R. and a brand new two-player fantasy game called Dragon Eclipse that emphasizes battling and capturing "majestic creatures". 

The video game franchise STALKER depicts the tale of fictitious armed groups that settle in the vicinity of the 1986 meltdown of the Chornobyl nuclear power station in northern Ukraine. The STALKER series, which debuted in 2007 with STALKER: Shadow of Chernobyl, is widely considered the inspiration for the contemporary open-world first-person shooter subgenre. STALKER: Clear Sky and STALKER: Call of Pripyat were two of the sequels. STALKER 2: Heart of Chornobyl, a contemporary revival, was revealed in 2018 and is scheduled to release sometime in 2023. 

The STALKER franchise's originator, GSC Game World, will work with Awaken Realms to co-produce the board game. A variation on the well-liked dungeon crawling genre, which includes games like Gloomhaven, Star Wars: Imperial Assault, and Descent: Tales of the Dark, the 1-4 person cooperative strategy game is referred to as a "zone-crawling" experience. Yet, a lot of the early pieces use placeholder text.