One of the most well-regarded modern conflict board games has come out of the steam as Labyrinth: The War on Terror, designed by Volko Ruhnke, a former CIA officer, Labyrinth depicts the struggle between the US-led counterterrorism forces and extremists around the world. It is a comprehensive game. It covers a wide range of topics, including global politics, terrorist attacks, and fundamentalist states, along with more conventional military operations such as regime change and guerrilla warfare.

Ruhnke's collaboration with GMT Games has been the most popular wargame and conflict simulation on the tabletop for the past decade, and this overview from the Washington Post in 2014 tells us why: players of Ruhnke's game are not the only extremists or foreign often sympathize with, or at least understand, the reasons why human groups engage in armed conflict; Ruhnke is especially known for its COIN series, named after the military jargon for counterinsurgency operations.

This is the first major release to come out of GMT's partnership with Playdek, announced in 2018; Playdek previously released Twilight Struggle, an excellent game by former Firaxis XCOM designer Ananda Gupta The game is a great example of a game that is not only about the game, but also about the game itself. Frankly, it's a shame they dropped the game's subtitle altogether; Labyrinth is physically marketed as Labyrinth: The War on Terror, 2001 - ? Sometimes I like to read the shelves of games and get somewhat depressed.Labyrinth: The War on Terror is available on Steam's Early Access.