Mantic Games has been talking up its Ghost in the Shell tabletop RPG since February, and with UK Games Expo nine days away the Nottingham publisher has just dropped a meaty new interview about exactly how the system works. If you have a soft spot for Section 9 and want to see the rulebook in the flesh, the Mantic stand at UKGE on 29-31 May is the place to be.
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Start organising for freeThe game is officially licensed by Kodansha and tied to Shirow Masamune's original cyberpunk manga rather than any of the anime adaptations, which is a deliberate choice. Designers Alessio Cavatore (Bolt Action, Kings of War, former Warhammer rules lead at Games Workshop) and Zak Barouh built a bespoke system instead of bolting Ghost in the Shell onto an existing ruleset. The signature mechanic is the Synthesis Conflict: every character has two contradictory Aspects representing their inner conflict, drawn from what Barouh calls a Hegelian dialectic. Aspects can be invoked for extra dice or compelled to drag a scene sideways, eventually triggering character-defining Crisis moments.
Combat is genuinely scary. A head has two hit points, an arm has three, and a standard handgun rolls D6 for damage, so the maths is not in your favour. Players soak some of that with Ghost Whispers, narrative currency earned by doing cool things and spent to nudge dice or mission outcomes. Hacking gets treated like magic does in a fantasy RPG, balanced by the fact that both players and the GM can lean on it, so over-reliance becomes its own problem. The launch book ships with a starter mission called Lost Patriot, and Cavatore confirms further mission outlines are already approved.
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Find events near youMantic is timing the full release for summer 2026, lined up with a new Ghost in the Shell anime series landing on Amazon Prime on 7 July. If you're going to UKGE, swing by the Mantic stand for the early reveals, and see who else from your group is heading to Birmingham while you're at it.
Sources: Geek Native | Mantic Games | Bell of Lost Souls
