D&D's Japanese Rival Sword World Crowdfunding Raises Over $2 million in a Day

Sword World RPG's first official English localization is off to a great start

Japan's most popular fantasy tabletop role-playing game, Sword World RPG, is finally live on BackerKit with its first official English localization. Courtesy of Mugen Gaming, a company that specializes in localizing Japanese tabletop games, the Sword World RPG campaign is already off to a great start, raising over $2 million in one day.

Sword World RPG comes from the creators of the Chronicles of Lodoss War franchise. In the late 1980s, the group of designers now known as Group SNE started playing Dungeons & Dragons after the game first landed in Japan. They began sharing reports of their adventures in magazines, creating the prototype of what is now known as "actual play." When TSR, D&D's publisher at the time, forced them to stop, they simply created their own game. Sword World RPG was a hit and made D&D almost irrelevant in Japan, but it never got an official English localization until now.

Sword World RPG 2.5 will finally be available in English

Back in 2025, Mugen Gaming announced the upcoming project to localize Sword World RPG in English. Speaking to Polygon, Mugen Gaming founders Shawn Davison and Ai Naminm-Davison said it all started with a serendipitous meeting with members of Group SNE on a train platform in Essen, Germany, where they had attended SPIEL, the world’s largest tabletop game fair. Until now, licensing issues had impeded an English localization of the game, whose rights are split between Group SNE and Kadokawa.

In little more than one year, Mugen Gaming has built a dedicated community through the Sword World Discord server, and fans showed up to support the project when the BackerKit campaign launched on Oct. 20, raising over $2 million in the first 24 hours. At the time of writing, the project has raised over $2.7 million.

The crowdfunding campaign will fund the first official complete localization, design, and printing of the Sword World 2.5 Core Rules. Mugen Gaming is working closely with Japanese creators to deliver a product that can satisfy the expectations of longtime fans of the game and also attract a new audience. Besides the supervision of Group SNE, the game will benefit from the work of Shunsuke Nakashige as art director. Nakashige is a successful anime director, known for his role in popular series like Solo Leveling and Sword Art Online.

Speaking in an exclusive interview with Polygon, Group SNE's president Hitoshi Yasuda explained Sword World's success and appeal in Japan: "It was affordable and easy to pick up, it was story-driven, its artwork felt more natural to Japanese audiences, and it helped create a new style of fantasy that blended Western and Japanese elements." Now, Yasuda hopes that the game will enjoy the same success among an expanded audience, and not only because of its mix of Western fantasy and anime-inspired visuals: "Mechanically, its multi-class system gives players a lot of flexibility, while still supporting strong party cooperation and a wide variety of character options. It also lends itself to diversity not just in combat, but in the kinds of stories and plot developments you can create."

Sword World utilizes a 2d6 dice system that D&D players might be unfamiliar with, but fans of Japanese-style RPGs like Chrono Trigger and Final Fantasy will recognize many other elements that these games borrowed from Sword World and the Lodoss War series.

The Sword World RPG BackerKit campaign will end on Nov. 20. The core products include the Core Rulebook, the Gamemasters Guide, and the Monster Manual. Higher level pledges include dice, character sheets, battle mats, cards, signed books, and more. Products are expected to ship by December 2027.