Fantasy is the most popular genre of role-playing game. Even if you don’t count the sheer volume of Dungeons and Dragons players, there are more titles that slot into the fantasy genre than any other. When reading and playing games, one could be excused for beginning to think that many of these fantasy titles are little different from each other; thanks to the early days of Dungeons and Dragons, many of the genre’s tropes are filtered through RPGs in frankly wild ways and that does mean we see a lot of the same basic structures in our fantasy games. Doesn’t seem to bother anyone at Free League Publishing, though. Apparently to them, the ideal number of fantasy games a single company should put out is a half dozen.

Needless to say, Free League’s reasoning for each fantasy game they release is different, and they also reap the benefit of a more stratified European gaming audience where the appetite for different, specific experiences is greater. In many cases, it’s also not hard to see that the genre has a lot of room for variety. Mork Borg and Forbidden Lands have very little to do with each other. That does make it a little interesting, though, when Free League acquires the IP for the grand-daddy of Swedish RPGs. As of 2021 they did make such an acquisition, and the result is out now in the form of Dragonbane.