My Neuroshima Hex achievements in 2025
Last year was quite special as my involvement with the Neuroshima Hex board game was recognized by the game’s creator, Portal Games, in every single published physical piece in 2025. Not to mention judging the Polish Championship and making an appearance in the ditial Neuroshima Hex released on Steam as well.
Half-jokingly I can say that running the biggest Neuroshima Hex fan site (Polish and worldwide) at NeuroshimaHex.pl since 2010 finally paid off. I don’t do it often, but I’ll allow myself to brag about what happened in the past twelve months.
Judging Neuroshima Hex Polish Championship
Starting in January, I was at the Neuroshima Hex Polish Championship 2024 organized during Portalcon 25 at Śląski Stadium in Chorzów where I was one of the judges. We’ve hosted more than one hundred of the best players in Poland, every single one had to win their ticket in local qualifications.
I was helping clarify any questions about the rules during the matches, given we have more than twenty Neuroshima Hex armies available and the document listing all the interactions between them is massive.
Neuroshima Hex on Steam
In June the Baked Games team released Neuroshima Hex on Steam for Windows PCs, which I helped promote through NeuroshimaHex.pl - one of the achievements in the game is called “End3r’s Game”.
Fun fact is, the achievement in its current form is awarded for winning 10 games, but the first idea was closer to how the Ender’s Game book ended, when Wiggin had fought the final battle with the Formics near their homeworld, and won by annihilating all his forces to destroy the enemy as well.
The achievement was suppose to be granted for winning the game by destroying all the units on the board, both your own and your opponent’s, but it turned out to be too difficult to execute, so Baked Games settled with something more… achievable.
Neuroshima Hex: Battle
A few months later, in September, the Battle expansion was published - the existence of the NeuroshimaHex.pl fan site was finally recognized, which wasn’t a common case in the past.
Two out of three urls in the Useful Links section at the end of the rulebook were the NeuroshimaHex.pl Discord server and the NeuroshimaHex.pl site itself.
Wiremen
One month after Battle, the Wiremen army expansion was released. I have fond memories about it as a tester. It was my favourite army prototype out of the available few that I’ve been playtesting for a couple of months. I really liked the new mechanic of the Technology tokens that can be used in the outer board ring, the spots that are not used by the Pirates army.
It’s really humbling to see how such a prototype (selected as the best one from 40 fan submissions) evolve over the span of half a year - both in terms of core mechanics, but also lore-wise. You end up with a polished product that resembles the core idea, but so many things are changed in the process.
Anyway, my name landed in the “thank you” section at the end of the printed rulebook added to every box.
Neuroshima Hex (base game)
The year 2025 was important for the Neuroshima Hex brand as it was 20 years since the 1.0 release, and thus the new base game was published. The 3.0 version was out in 2013, and we had the Year of Moloch collector’s edition in 2021, so it was time for something new. It had the same four starter armies, but lots of cool things inside as well.
One of those things was the Map Atlas - eight maps with their own scenarios, specific starting setup and winning conditions. I was part of the small team here in Warsaw that was playtesting those scenarios and helping balance them for the final product.
Not only my name landed in the usual “thank you” spot at the end of the rulebook, but the Useful Links section included NeuroshimaHex.pl Discord, NeuroshimaHex.pl site itself, our Neuroshima Hex Polska group on Facebook, AND my own web application NSHex Counter made as Enclave Games that debuted in 2019 and serves the purpose of the helper app to count Neuroshima Hex tiles, so you don’t need to remember what tokens were used already and what is yet co come.
I was also able to secure one of the two spots for the partnership on the back of the box, so NeuroshimaHex.pl was officially recommending this edition to all potential buyers along with Planszeo.
Four contests
Thanks to Portal Games and Baked Games I’ve organized four contests where you could win both physical and digital prizes:
The one with the new edition of Neuroshima Hex was the most popular in terms of submitted answers in the history of competitions on the site.
Summary
That’s a lot and is definitely not going to be repeated anytime soon, so I’m really happy about how it turned out. Neuroshima Hex is my favourite board game of all time for the past two decades, so being able to be part of every single project in 2025, one way or the other, was extremely rewarding.
That recognition helps me run NeuroshimaHex.pl - regularly write news pieces, add tiles descriptions when new armies are released, review products, publish photoshoots, and everything else needed to keep it alive, sixteen years and still going.