Steamforged Games Faces Backlash as Backer Updates Dry Up

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Steamforged Games keeps talking up Warmachine’s growth, while backers of nine unfinished board game crowdfunders are still getting few updates, and not very often.

Steamforged is happy to tell everyone that Warmachine and P3 Paints revenue tripled in 21 months. But ask what’s going on with Monster Hunter Iceborne? Well, you’re looking at an apology from July.

Last month, we broke down what the overdue filings from SFG mean for Warmachine, and things have only gotten worse on the board game side since then. That’s a little weird for a company that bought Warmachine from Privateer Press in 2024 and hasn’t been shy about sharing how well it’s doing.

We reviewed every campaign page on friday, and yeah, things aren’t looking any better than they did in September for any of the nine outstanding campaigns SFG has going. 

Four Steamforged Campaigns Are Past Their Own Delivery Dates

We’re not talking about just one or two projects SFG is a little behind on, either. Wargamer even counted nine outstanding Steamforged campaigns in its September 18 report. Four were still in development, while five had finished development but were waiting on some or all of their printing or shipping. BoardGameWire came up with nine too in its October 9 follow-up, although it counted P3 Paints Wave 2, so the lists aren’t exactly the same, but eight of the big names show up on both, and that’s where things start getting awkward.

Back on July 29, Euthia: Cruel Frost, Horizon Forbidden West: Seeds of Rebellion, Monster Hunter World: Iceborne, and Hearts of Iron all put out pretty much the same status update. They apologized for not having much actual news and said Steamforged was waiting to hear from partners. We checked all four campaign pages on Friday, and not a single new update since.

And look, waiting for an update is one thing, but waiting for an update or products after the delivery date has already come and gone? That’s another. Iceborne’s January update said the goal was to ship to every region together in July 2026. Horizon’s US backers were told “around June 2026” last October, and Hearts of Iron still has June 2026 on its pledge cards. Meanwhile, Bardsung: Tale of the Forsaken Glade lists April 2026, even though its last update on June 11 opened by apologizing for the delay.

That’s four missed delivery dates, with no revised timeline posted for any of them.

Now, it’s not like every campaign has gone completely silent. Elden Ring: Rot and Sorcery showed off a boss preview on October 2, Terra Mystica Special Edition shared some faction art on September 8, and 6: Siege posted on October 12 that it’s shipped everywhere except Asia, where it’s on the way. That’s something, sure. But two of those are basically content previews. The only actual shipping news came from a pre-order that was already going out.

The Warmachine Discord Is Not Where Backers Get Answers

Here’s where the Warmachine comparison really comes into all of this. Steamforged started a separate Warmachine Discord in December 2025, with staff moving over from the original community server. Then, on July 31, a senior designer posted in the old Discord that his team had finished its Iceborne work and that any further information would come from the official campaign pages. So if you’re looking for any updates there, now you’ll have to go back to the main pages. 

Changing where news is coming from isn’t that wild, but those pages haven’t had much to say at all.

Then, according to BoardGameWire, Steamforged’s head of marketing told users on September 23 that the Warmachine Discord wasn’t the place for crowdfunding questions. Where should they go instead? Right back to the campaign pages. BoardGameWire also says it contacted CEO Rich Loxam in August, September, and October without getting a response. Some backers have reportedly spent weeks or months waiting on refunds, with a few going through PayPal disputes or chargebacks instead.

We understand wanting to keep the Warmachine Discord focused on Warmachine. No problem there. But if you’re sending board game backers to official pages that haven’t been updated since July, where exactly are they supposed to get answers?

There’s Serious Money On The Table Here

Comments on the Helldivers 2: The Board Game latest update

Monster Hunter World: Iceborne has more than $8.4 million in reported pledges, while Helldivers 2: The Board Game has pulled in more than $4.4 million. But, keep in mind that Steamforged is based in the UK, and those numbers include late pledges, so the exact totals depend on currency and what you’re counting as part of the campaign. To be clear, that’s not money sitting in Steamforged’s bank account, or the value of everything left to deliver; it’s just how much backers pledged.

Still, we’re talking about more than $12.8 million between two games. So, that’s a lot of backer money, no matter which way you calculate it, and the delays keep building up. BoardGameWire puts Iceborne’s original delivery date at November 2024, and Wargamer was already calling it roughly two years late back in June.

Then there’s Helldivers 2. That’s the one to watch this month. Its Gamefound pledge cards still show October 2026, and we’re already at the end of October. Steamforged’s crowdfunding page still calls it in development, while its latest update on August 12 was a designer diary covering the Automaton Factory Strider. 

We’ve seen what happens when backers start losing faith in a crowdfunding project, and it usually doesn’t start with a huge announcement. It starts with shorter updates and longer gaps between them like we saw with The Ravaged Star situation at MiniWarGaming, that is still pretty fresh in people’s minds.

Layoffs, Overdue Accounts and a 74 Percent Markdown

And remember, all of this is happening during a pretty rough year for Steamforged itself. BoardGameWire reported in June that the company went through a confidential redundancy process during the first quarter of 2026. Anonymous sources say the layoffs affected about a third of the staff, including creative, game design, production, project management, QA, marketing, and commercial teams. Steamforged wouldn’t confirm how many people were cut, but it did say it was pulling back on new board game crowdfunding “for the moment.”

Now, there’s another side to that. Steamforged told BoardGameWire it still had the internal and external resources needed to meet its commitment, plus they have technically never failed to fulfill a crowdfunding campaign yet. Which is worth remembering because we’re not saying the company is about to collapse.

But then you’ve got the paperwork situation. Companies House issued First Gazette notices for compulsory strike-off against Steamforged Games Ltd and Steamforged Holdings Ltd on September 1. However, both actions were discontinued on September 5, and Steamforged said the late filings were related to restructuring and described the notices as routine.

Even so, as of today, both companies still have their accounts listed as overdue. The most recently filed accounts cover the year ending March 31, 2024.

And there’s another number worth looking at. BoardGameWire says investor Foresight marked down its Steamforged holding by almost 74% during the first half of 2026. That takes its stake from £3.68 million to just over £960,000. Remember, that’s the value of Foresight’s investment, not Steamforged’s overall valuation. Still, imagine reading that while you’re waiting for news about a Kickstarter you backed, ooof.

Do any of those things prove Steamforged is in serious trouble? No. But put the layoffs, overdue accounts, and investment markdown together with missed delivery dates and the lack of communication, and you can see why backers have questions.

What Steamforged Backers Deserve to Hear

At this point, we’d like to see Steamforged give backers some straight answers to a few pretty reasonable questions:

• Are all nine outstanding campaigns still on track to be completed, and which ones have missed their latest delivery estimates?
• How many staff members are still working on the unfinished board game projects after the layoffs?
• Why did several campaigns stop getting regular updates with actual progress information in 2026?
• Are production, manufacturing, shipping, or supplier issues holding up fulfillment?
• When can backers expect the next major milestones for Helldivers 2, Iceborne, Hearts of Iron, and the other projects?
• Is any backer money being used for Warmachine operations? (That’s a question, not an accusation.)
• When are the overdue annual accounts getting filed with Companies House?

Final Thoughts on Steamforged Games’ Current Situation

Steamforged says it still has the people and resources to finish these projects, so we really do hope that’s the case. And given its history of fulfilling campaigns, there’s a reason to give the company some credit.

But you can only point to that history for so long when delivery dates keep slipping. Iceborne, Horizon, and Hearts of Iron are already past their stated dates, and Helldivers 2 could be next if boxes don’t start shipping this week.

So, if Steamforged can share growth numbers for Warmachine, why can’t it give board game backers updated delivery timelines? Until those dates are actually posted and the overdue accounts are filed, you can’t really blame backers for continuing to ask questions.

🔗 Related Reads:

• SFG Accounts Are Overdue: What It Means for Warmachine
• Privateer Press Sells Warmachine to Steamforged Games
• Steamforge Games Gives Warmachine a New Look
• MiniWarGaming Says They May Not Be Able To Continue
• MiniWarGaming Apologizes at NOVA, Update on Ravaged Star
• Kickstarter Articles and News

Do you still trust Steamforged Games to deliver its outstanding crowdfunders?

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