CATAN Reboots Popular Two-Player Variant After 20 Years

A popular two-player variant of CATAN is coming back for a brand new edition. This week, CATAN Studio announced CATAN: Starfarers Duel, a reboot of the 2001 Starship Catan board game. Both games are a spin-off of Starfarers of Catan, but with distinctive and unique gameplay that differs from other CATAN games. Players each have a ship that they can upgrade over time and explore different decks to find potential colonies or fight space pirates. New to CATAN: Starfarers Duel are several new training missions to help players get used to the game's unique systems, an improved rocket player board with resource wheels, and a new game experience that incorporates key CATAN mechanics. 

This marks the second recent expansion of the space-themed CATAN: Starfarers line, which involves exploring space systems instead of a single island. CATAN Studio also recently released a CATAN: Starfarers – New Encounters pack, which added several new scenarios that added variant rules to the game. 

CATAN: Starfarers Duel will be released in Q1 2024 and has a retail price of $34.99. You can find more details of the new game on the official CATAN website. 

What Is Catan?

CATAN (formerly known as Settlers of Catan) is a classic board game in which players compete for resources to build the best colony on an uninhabited island. Players earn victory points for each town and city they get on the board, along with having the longest road or by having the largest army (which they score by playing the most knight cards.) Players can also choose to make trades for resources, which has led to the saying "Give me wood for your sheep" becoming synonymous with the game. CATAN was one of the first Euro-style games to reach worldwide popularity and has spawned numerous spinoffs and expansions.