Last Gambit

The chess you know ends on the first move.

In Last Gambit the board doesn't hand you an army: you build it yourself. Piece by piece, battle by battle, until your formation looks like nothing an opening manual ever prepared for.

An army that grows with you

27 pieces, from the six classics to ones you won't find in any chess club: the Unicorn, the Griffon, the Void Queen that leaves through one edge and comes back through the other, the Phoenix that returns from its ashes, Catapults and Trebuchets that hurl your own pieces, the Summoner, the Mirror.

You start with a handful. The rest have to be discovered: by taking down the Story bosses, by winning under crazy conditions (with your King strolling across half the board, or coming back from ten points down), by earning trophies, by experimenting in the Laboratory. Every piece you discover is one more weapon, online too.

Fuse two pieces into a stronger one, clone the one you need, evolve your pawns in the middle of the fight. Deployment is free: you decide the formation.

A Story that never plays the same way twice

A branching map, chapters of battles, merchants and bosses. Along the way you collect perks that bend the rules: rewind a move, freeze a piece, teleport it, revive what had fallen. Every run is a different army and a new problem.

And you are not alone. Players on your same seed show up on the map: you can trade pieces and perks with them in the Barter, or challenge them with the roster of your run. If they aren't around, you challenge their ghost.

Online, where theory isn't enough

Two ways to prepare for battle, and each one changes how you think about the match.

In Fixed the match starts with a draw: a pool of pieces, the same for you and your opponent. Each of you bans one, then you build your army from the offers and deploy it. Same cards on the table, two different armies: make the most of the draw to get the edge on your opponent.

In Budget you have a reserve of points and every piece has its price. A few powerful pieces or a large army: you decide where to spend, and your opponent, from the same catalogue, may have chosen differently.

Matchmaking finds players who want the same match as you, by rating, time and perks. With perks on, before the start each player gets one drawn from a shared deck.

When you want to play alone there is the computer, which uses perks as well as you do, even offline. Or two players on the same screen.

And if you'd rather play as a pair, online there is two versus two as well.

For those who never stop

All 27 pieces to discover, perk collections and fusion recipes to complete, more than forty trophies to earn, and some of them give you a new piece. Then new goals every week and your Career, with stats and ranks.

The board is the same as always. Everything else isn't.