Disclosure: Meeple Mountain received a free copy of this product in exchange for an honest, unbiased review. This review is not intended to be an endorsement.
Arena of Annihilation
I have Mindbug Mania: it’s a game I want to play at every given moment. It’s a smooth, snappy, and satisfying card battler that captures the essence of a large TCG in fifteen minutes or fewer. So, when I heard about a new project from the same minds behind the bug—Richard Garfield and Christian Kudahl—I was ecstatic.
Final Titan is the upcoming draft battler from Nerdlab Games, where players assemble a team to best their opponents in 1v1 bouts. Fans of the genre will be reminded of King of Tokyo, Small World and Dice Throne. The last champion standing is crowned the Final Titan, savoring the sweet taste of victory. This review covers the prototype version, which includes only a fraction of the total champions and may undergo additional balancing and modifications before the final product launches.
Oh Champion, My Champion
Final Titan plays over a series of fights, where one player’s champion challenges the Titan in the middle until one of them is defeated. Players command a team of four drafted champions (three for a shorter game), along with single-use upgrade cards that can sway the tide of battle.
The first Titan in the arena is the one with the highest speed (initiative), and players have the option to fight or flee. If a player chooses to avoid battle, they must sacrifice one of their upgrade cards to the pot—until someone brave enough steps into the ring, claiming the growing pile of upgrade cards. These cards are invaluable, allowing players to negate powers, buff champions, re-roll dice, or gain other advantages in battle. To shy away from combat is costly!
Players can play any number of upgrade cards before the Titans clash. The two champions then duke it out, rolling dice in turns and resolving damage or abilities based on the result. Rolling the charge icon allows a player to unleash their Titan’s ultimate attack or ability, showcasing its true power.
When a champion is defeated, they are discarded, and the victor remains, earning another upgrade card. However, survival comes at a cost. The Titan doesn’t heal before the next challenger enters the fray and loses all played upgrade cards. There will be heartbreak, triumph, downfalls, and victories, but in the end, there can be only one Final Titan.
A Champion or a Fallen Warrior?
Final Titan is a solid beer-and-pretzels game: lighthearted, chaotic, and best enjoyed with a group ready to embrace the mayhem. While there’s a small bit of rules overhead at first, the action quickly ramps up, and the game becomes a thrilling back-and-forth of desperate attacks, clutch rolls, and dramatic knockouts. You’re going to lose champions—and fast—but that’s the nature of the beast. This is not a game about careful, calculated strategy. It’s about embracing the absurdity, throwing your best fighters into the fray, and watching the carnage unfold.
Even players who typically dislike “conflict” mechanics had fun, which speaks volumes about the game’s design. There’s no targeted bullying or the kind of ruthless elimination that can make competitive games feel mean-spirited. Instead, combat is simply the nature of the game, and every player is in the same boat, punching and getting punched, with no real room for grudges.
Another highlight is the game’s pacing. Final Titan doesn’t overstay its welcome, avoiding one of the biggest pitfalls of player elimination games: boredom. Even when a player was knocked out, it usually happened only a round or two before the game ended, ensuring they weren’t sitting around for too long. That balance is crucial and makes the game feel fair, even when the dice gods are particularly cruel.
I also have to give a shout-out to the creativity and art (team of Xavier Cuenca, Emanuele Desiati, Maximilian Gotthold, Fanny Pastor-Berlie, Nicolas Vallée) behind the champions themselves. Each champion is a reference to mythology or pop culture, and recognizing them is a fun moment.
However, the champions are also where the game’s success—and potential downfall—lies. Over and over, we questioned the balance, as every hero seemed to have some absurdly powerful ability. The Sand Wyrm (chef’s kiss to the Dune reference) has an attack that deals a flat 20 damage—completely ridiculous when the average hero has 6–12 health. Another hero’s ultimate ability lets a player draw two more champions from the deck, essentially giving them extra lives. It’s the kind of wild imbalance that makes you stop and ask, Wait… is this supposed to happen?
And yet, somehow, it almost works. If everyone is overpowered, does that actually make the game balanced? Maybe. It certainly keeps things interesting, as no champion ever feels useless. But it also makes the experience wildly unpredictable. One match might see a champion steamrolling through multiple opponents, while the next could have a powerful hero taken down in two unlucky rolls. If you enjoy that kind of chaotic, swingy gameplay, you’ll have a blast. If you prefer more control and balance, Final Titan might leave you frustrated.
You can try to buff your champions with upgrades and strategize around weaknesses, but if you roll blanks, you’re out in the cold, my friend. And believe me, that happened a lot. There’s nothing more anticlimactic than building up a powerhouse of a champion, only to watch them whiff every attack and get wiped off the board without landing a single hit. It’s the kind of moment that makes you want to flip the table—or burst into laughter.
At its core, Final Titan is designed as a simple, fast-paced battler, but it could use a little more polish. It feels like it’s missing something small—something that could push it from solid to great. Maybe it’s a light leveling-up mechanic, where champions grow stronger after each victory, or an ability to store up power for future battles. Maybe it just needs a bit more fine-tuning in how abilities interact. Right now, it leans heavily on its dice-driven luck, which is part of the fun but also its biggest weakness.
That being said, I’m still excited about the final product. The foundation is strong, and with some extra bake time, Final Titan has the potential to be a fantastic addition to the quick-battle genre. Here’s hoping Nerdlab Games smooths out the rough edges and delivers a polished, chaotic brawler worthy of its name.
Check out Final Titan on Gamefound in 2025.
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