Planet Apocalypse Board Game FAQ: Answers to the Questions Buyers Ask

What is Planet Apocalypse, and who is it for?

Planet Apocalypse is a cooperative tower-defense board game for 1 to 5 players, designed by Sandy Petersen, where a team of post-apocalypse heroes fights to hold a portal against demonic hordes and eventually take down the demon lord commanding them. It's built for players who already like dice-driven co-op games and want a horror theme with real teeth.

The setup is straightforward to describe and harder to survive: demons pour through a gate called the Doom Gate, and the team has to kill enough of them, upgrade their heroes, and manage the invasion map before the horde overwhelms the defense line. Everyone loses together or wins together. There's no traitor mechanic and no player working against the table, which keeps the tension focused entirely on the game itself rather than on each other.

Art and miniature styling come from Keith Thompson, whose work gives the demon sculpts a distinct, grim look rather than generic fantasy monster design. That production quality is a big part of why the game reads as a Petersen Games centerpiece rather than a filler title. You can see full specs and current listing details on the Planet Apocalypse product page.

How many players does Planet Apocalypse support?

Planet Apocalypse is a cooperative game for 1 to 5 players, ages 14 and up, per the Petersen Games product page. Everyone plays on the same team against the demon lord and his hordes, so there's no player elimination and no one working against the group.

Solo play is a real option here, not an afterthought bolted onto a multiplayer design. One player can run a single hero or manage more than one, depending on how much complexity they want to juggle. At the higher end, five players spreads out the hero roles enough that everyone gets a distinct job on the defense line without waiting a long time between turns. Three to four players tends to be the sweet spot reviewers point to for pacing: enough hands to cover the map, not so many that turns drag.

Is Planet Apocalypse good for beginners?

Planet Apocalypse plays best for players who already have a few cooperative or dice-driven games under their belt. It carries a BoardGameGeek community weight around 3.11 out of 5, medium-heavy, and reviewers note the rules feel dense at setup but click quickly once turn one starts. Four difficulty tiers, standard, hard, hellish, and nightmare, let a table dial the challenge to match experience level.

That difficulty range matters more than it might sound. A group new to tower-defense co-ops can start on standard and still feel real pressure, while veteran players chasing a tougher fight can jump straight to hellish or nightmare without touching a single component differently. In its review of Planet Apocalypse, BoardGameQuest called out the production values and balance as strengths, while flagging that the core box gives you just one demon lord, Baphomet, to fight, which limits early replay variety until you add an expansion.

Is it a first board game ever? No. Is it a first horror co-op for someone who already owns a strategy game or two? That's exactly the shopper this game is built for.

How long does a game of Planet Apocalypse take?

Sixty minutes, per the product page. Player reports on BoardGameGeek suggest full sessions often run longer, especially against tougher demon lords or at higher difficulty settings, so first-time groups should plan for more than an hour.

A few things stretch runtime beyond that baseline: table size (five players simply takes longer to move through than one), how familiar the group is with hero upgrade paths, and which demon lord is on the table. Baphomet, the lord in the core box, is the one every review treats as the tuned, well-tested introduction. Add-on lords tend to run longer and meaner once a group knows what they're doing.

What comes in the Planet Apocalypse core box?

One demon lord ships in the base game: Baphomet. Alongside him, the core box includes sculpted hero and demon miniatures, the Doom Gate and Invasion maps, hero cards with individual abilities and flaws, upgrade tracks, and the tokens and trackers needed to run a full campaign of fights straight out of the box.

That single-lord setup is a deliberate design choice, not a shortcoming buried in fine print. Baphomet is the fight every later expansion assumes players already understand, so the core box teaches the full system cleanly before anyone adds new variables. Once a group has a handle on how the demon AI and wave structure work, the expansion lords change the fight at a structural level rather than simply re-skinning the same encounter.

How much does Planet Apocalypse cost, and is it in stock?

The Planet Apocalypse core box lists at $99.99 on petersengames.com. As of this writing the core box is showing sold out on the product page; Petersen Games restocks the line periodically and has run Kickstarter campaigns for new content, so check the product page directly for current availability before you plan a purchase.

When an order does ship, the standard Petersen Games terms apply: in-stock orders process within 48 hours (2 business days, Monday through Friday), then US orders move via USPS Ground Advantage, typically 2 to 5 business days in transit, with rates calculated at checkout. Canadian orders ship via DHL Ground, typically 3 to 7 business days in transit. If the core box is unavailable when you check, the individual demon lord expansions and accessory packs on the collection page are often still purchasable on their own.

What expansions are available for Planet Apocalypse?

The core box ships with one demon lord, Baphomet. Petersen Games sells additional demon lord and lady miniature expansions, including Jabootu, Scylla, Asmod, Procrustes, Pulgasaur, Great Cthulhu, and Spider Mastermind, plus bundle packs like the Pack of the Pit, Power Pack, and Relic Pack, all listed on the Planet Apocalypse collection page.

Rounding out the ecosystem are smaller add-ons: an alternate combat dice pack, a graphic novel set in the same world, and a demonology-themed art print. That's a genuinely deep expansion catalog for a single game line, which fits the broader Petersen Games model of a centerpiece box plus years of follow-on content rather than a one-and-done purchase. New buyers don't need any of it to play a complete game; it's there for tables that want more demon lords to fight once Baphomet feels familiar. Browse the full lineup on the Planet Apocalypse collection page.

Is the Planet Apocalypse 5e RPG sourcebook the same as the board game?

No. Planet Apocalypse for 5e is a separate 350-plus page sourcebook for D&D 5th edition, priced at $59.99, with new subclasses, feats, spells, three adventures, 15 Arch Lords, and over 70 monster stat blocks. It shares the demon-apocalypse setting with the board game but is a standalone RPG product, not a board game expansion.

Think of them as two different ways into the same world rather than one product feeding the other. The board game is a tabletop combat and resource-management experience you can finish in an evening. The sourcebook hands a Dungeon Master everything needed to run an entire apocalyptic campaign inside their own D&D world, built around Arch Lords instead of the board game's demon lord roster. In its review of the 5e sourcebook, Opinionated Gamers praised the production quality and the bestiary section, while noting it demands real prep work and is better suited to experienced Dungeon Masters than brand-new ones. Fans of the board game's setting who also play D&D tend to get the most out of owning both, but neither purchase requires the other.

Whichever format you're after, both live on the same product family at Petersen Games. Check the Planet Apocalypse board game page for the core game and its expansions, and the sourcebook listing for the 5e tie-in.

Planet Apocalypse FAQ