Lazy Marmot Games announced on October 29 that Sekigahara: The Unification of Japan, GMT Games’ block wargame, comes to Steam in early 2027. It still has no dice. The independent studio in Vienna is making the two-player game for PC, Mac and Linux, with single-player against the AI and crossplay online multiplayer. No price has been announced.
The board game was designed by Matt Calkins and first published by GMT in 2011. It covers the 1600 campaign that ended at the Battle of Sekigahara, with Tokugawa Ieyasu’s eastern army against the western army led by Ishida Mitsunari. Each army is a set of blocks that stand with their faces turned away from the enemy. You can see where your rival’s forces are, but not what they are.
Fighting runs on cards. To bring a block into a battle, you play a card that carries that block’s clan symbol. No matching card means no troops, however many blocks you have standing nearby.
How Sekigahara's loyalty cards copy the real betrayal
Defections decided the real battle. Kobayakawa Hideaki, on the western side, attacked an allied position mid-battle, and the western flank broke. Calkins put that in the deck. Loyalty challenge cards let a player try to turn an enemy's troops during a fight. With no dice, the uncertainty comes from what is hidden: the face of each block and the cards in each hand.
The digital edition adds what a table cannot do. There is a scenario editor for historical and what-if setups, plus rule and setup variants. A replay mode shows every move and combat with turn summaries, and planning tools hint at how a fight is likely to go. The AI has personalities you can tune, down to how aggressive it is, how much risk it takes, how it values resources and how big it likes its stacks.
Przemek Szalaj, founder and lead developer at Lazy Marmot Games, said the goal was to capture "the brilliant strategic depth that made Sekigahara a tabletop classic" and make it easier to pick up. This is a game for people who would rather bluff than roll, and a tunable AI means they no longer need a second bluffer at the table.
Sekigahara can be wishlisted on Steam ahead of its Q1 2027 release.
