Catan, the classic gateway board game, gets a bright new 6th edition this year

Klaus Teuber’s Catan, widely credited with kicking off the modern board gaming renaissance, turns 30 years old this year. To celebrate, Catan — the global company behind the beloved tabletop brand — is refreshing the look and feel of the classic title for the first time in a decade with a revised sixth edition launching in April, 2025. New, revised expansions and extensions are also currently in production for release. Polygon sat down with managing director Benjamin Teuber, son of the original game’s late designer, to discuss the upcoming release.

Catan tells a story about Vikings colonizing islands long before the dawn of modern Europe, asking players to make their way in its fictional world by trading resources like wood, grain, and sheep. The game’s popularity directly contributed to changing American tastes for board games. Today, domestic audiences have a strong preference for these so-called “Euro-style” board games, which like Catan eschew direct conflict and instead favor a collaborative style of gameplay with more limited randomness and dice-rolling.

Benjamin Teuber told Polygon that even he is continually surprised by the impact his father had on the industry.

“It changed so much of how [board] gaming is perceived,” he said in a recent video call, “and how you bring people to the table.”

Ten years ago Catan changed its name, dropping “The Settlers of” preamble and putting the island’s name up front. This time around the biggest change by far is the new box art, which features a brighter and more naturalistic expression of the Catan universe — complete with hex-shaped fields in the background, which directly mirror the look of the game on the table. There’s also a very heartfelt Easter egg embedded in the cover of the base game — a tiny Klaus Teuber driving a cart full of wheat up the lane.

Tile art has also been updated and the components, like roads and buildings, are a hair larger while a helpful plastic pack-in makes drawing cards easier. However, for existing fans, Catan should look and play very much like it has in the past. Importantly, it will also remain compatible with existing expansions so fans can be assured of cross compatibility with the supplements they already own.

Benjamin Teuber said that he hopes the game’s appeal extends well into the next three decades.

“My personal opinion is that the best way to make a game known is to play it and to make people play it,” he said. “I think there are a few things which you just have to do nowadays, which are a good video tutorial of explaining the game, giving easy access to the game, maybe a good app to teach the game. But then you need to make people just experience it.”

Catan, alongside Catan: Cities and Knights and Catan: Seafarers expansions, will be available globally in the 6th edition beginning April 4, 2025 alongside their five- and six-player extensions.