Attempting to stake its claim to an even bigger share of the trading card game market, Bandai Namco is positioning its 45-year-old super-robot franchise Mobile Suit Gundam as the next competitor for Magic: The Gathering and Pokémon.
The Japanese company will roll out a first set of starter decks and boosters for its Gundam Card Game early next year through specialty retailers across North America, Latin America, Europe and Oceania. But ahead of this worldwide push, Bandai plans to introduce a beta version of the game in December at select conventions and sponsored hobby shop events to give players a first taste of the gameplay and solicit their feedback on its mechanics.
Gundam Card Game pits two or more players against each other in a face-off with 50-card decks representing the series’ iconic robots, pilots and bases, which they must use to knock out their opponents’ shields to win the game. At launch, the TCG will focus on five iterations of the franchise—Gundam (1979), Gundam Wing (1995), Gundam SEED (2002), Gundam Unicorn (2010) and Gundam: The Witch From Mercury (2022)—to cultivate the largest player base possible.
Bandai already has several years of experience in the TCG space, having developed licensed games for Dragon Ball (2017), Digimon (2020) and One Piece (2023) that are still being augmented by eight new booster sets each year.
The Gundam Card Game joins a stacked consumer products program that includes video games, snap-fit model kits, action figures, blind-box collectibles and publishing. Last year alone, Bandai Namco’s Gundam brand generated US$992 million in annual revenue across all of the company’s divisions.