Labyrinth: The Forever War, 2015 - ? is a 1-2 player card-driven boardgame simulating at the strategic level the ongoing bid by Islamist extremists to impose their brand of religious rule on the Muslim world.
It continues where Labyrinth: The Awakening, 2010 - ? left off and adds new event cards and rules to cover the last five years of history. Since publication of Labyrinth and its first expansion, fans of the game have expressed a desire to update it based on more recent events, and a variety of event card ideas and variants have been freely shared online. This second expansion to the Labyrinth game series fulfills that continuing interest by providing up-to-date event cards and allows the game to continue to serve as an effective strategic level model of the ongoing struggles in the Muslim world.
Labyrinth: The Forever War, 2015 - ? uses the exact same rules, victory conditions, map, components, and charts as its predecessor game and expansion.
Ownership of Labyrinth and Labyrinth: The Awakening, 2010 - ? is required for play.
Much has happened in the Muslim World since the end of the Labyrinth: Awakening event deck (roughly 2015), with a number of sub-themes across the globe that give rise to a new narrative that has been playing out over the last five years; these include:
- Growth and then Collapse of the physical Islamic State Caliphate
- Increased Iranian/Saudi Arabian Rivalry and Proxy War
- Government Repression of Expression (Syria, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, etc.)
- Increased Women’s Rights Activism across the region
- Increased Russian and other International involvement in the Middle East
- Incredible violence outside the Middle East from ISIL and others across Europe, New Zealand, Sri Lanka and elsewhere
- Impact of President Donald Trump and his personality on US Foreign Policy
- Continued activity of African Jihadists
- Plight of International Refugees
- Emerging Main-Power Rivalry between the US, Russia, China, EU and the UK
