Haunted Castle Gaming closed its doors with little warning back on April 3rd (or 4th, not exactly sure). That meant the end for a Canadian TCG called Genesis: Battle of Champions. Since then, various parties, including former employees, players, store owners and others have mourned its passing and talked about ways to keep the game going.

I’ve tried to keep up with developments, curious to see if there was a chance that the game might be saved. One thing that quickly became apparent is that my impression of the game’s creator is not universally shared. This is not a big surprise to me. Not only do relationships get strained when things don’t go according to plan but my impressions are based on a few short interactions rather than deeper relationships that others would have had. Suffice it to say that I don’t know any of the people involved and the details behind the fall of the company well enough to weigh in on any of this with any authority. My interest remains solely ins seeing what will happen to the game.

Earlier in the week, I caught a YouTube stream promising some news about the future of Genesis. While I missed the livestream, I was able to catch the video later. It revealed that a few former Genesis designers were hard at work on a new game called Convergence. The idea appears to be to make this new game backwards compatible with Genesis cards. It would use the elements of the game that are not covered by intellectual property and supplement new ones where needed. What’s that saying: Putting lipstick on a pig but it might be enough for them to avoid treading on any intellectual property (Not sure how I feel about this practice but that’s neither here or there).

During the stream, I learned that the game’s website no longer featured the message about Haunted Castle Gaming closing. Instead, it promises that Invasion (the set that should have been released sometime this year) is indeed coming. Things got more interesting when the website title changed during the livestream, suggesting that whoever was running the site now was on the stream. It certainly energized the stream! But it revealed little more about the game’s future. I did wonder if a particular Canadian game designer on the stream might be that person but that was pure conjecture.

Yesterday, my leisurely Sunday afternoon was interrupted by my phone chirping that I there was a new YouTube video calling for my attention. The title immediately caught my attention: “The future of Genesis: Battle of Champions revealed! New owners, ask them ALMOST anything!”

The long and short of it is that Genesis has some new owners. It turns out that my little conjecture was not far from the mark. But with an interesting wrinkle. While final legal details are still being sorted out, it looks like Jason Malott, he who introduced this family to Genesis and runs North of Exile, is one of the three owners along with Canadian game designer Jeffrey Pacitto.

In response to some cards from the forthcoming Invasion set being posted on Discord, the two revealed themselves to be the new owners. The two had originally planned to reveal all a few weeks later but the leak forced their hand. Few details were revealed but more information is promised in the coming weeks. I’ll definitely be watching to see how this story evolves from here.

I’m pretty excited that Genesis has found new owners and that a truly Canadian TCG will remain so in its next incarnation. If nothing else, I have one more reason to go North with the boys. Hopefully we’ll be able to play some Magic and get deeper into Genesis next time we’re in Midland.