Checkborne: A Chess Adventure

A CHESS JOURNEY AROUND THE WORLD

Travel the world and challenge 20 unique chess masters on your journey to become the CHECKBORNE Champion.
From London to Rome and far beyond, every chapter takes you to a new destination and a new opponent. Defeat each master to unlock the next stop on your journey.

20 MASTERS. 20 PERSONALITIES.

Every master has their own personality and playing style. Some favor patient positional play, while others seek sharp attacks, tactical complications or relentless pressure.
With three difficulty levels, you can challenge the Masters at a strength that suits your experience — from good hobby players to experienced club players and beyond. On Normal difficulty, you can take back up to three moves per game, giving you a chance to recover from mistakes and keep your journey moving.
CHECKBORNE doesn't simply make every opponent stronger. Each master evaluates strong moves differently according to their individual style, creating opponents that feel distinct across the board.
Learn how they play. Adapt your strategy. Find their weaknesses. And defeat them.

PLAY CHESS YOUR WAY

Experience each match on an atmospheric 3D chessboard surrounded by scenery inspired by your opponent's home city. Rotate and adjust your view freely — or switch instantly to a traditional 2D board whenever you prefer.
Play White, play Black, or let a coin toss decide which side you'll take.
Need a break? Leave a match whenever you like and continue exactly where you left off when you return.
Play with mouse and keyboard or sit back with your controller — choose whichever way feels best at the board.

MORE THAN THE JOURNEY

Review previous moves during a match, retry opponents after a defeat, and improve as the masters become increasingly challenging.
Want to forget about the journey for a while? Sit down with a friend and play a classic game of chess in local two-player mode.

20 masters stand between you and the title.

Can you defeat them all and become the Master of CHECKBORNE?

POWERED BY RODENT IV AND STOCKFISH. SHAPED BY PERSONALITY.

CHECKBORNE uses the excellent open-source Rodent IV chess engine as the foundation for its computer opponents — but the 20 Masters aren't simply the same engine at different difficulty levels.

Each Master has a distinct Rodent IV personality, further shaped by CHECKBORNE's own move-selection system, which deliberately influences the range of moves available to the engine. This allows opponents to differ not only in playing strength, but also in how they approach the game and the kinds of mistakes they make.

Stockfish is used as a benchmark to evaluate and carefully balance the playing strength of each opponent.

An adventurous opponent may favor initiative and attacking chances. Another may seek simplification and strong endgames. Some build pressure patiently, activate their rooks, launch pawn storms, look for tactical complications, or punish loose pieces.

As the Masters become stronger, their freedom to deviate from the strongest moves becomes smaller — but their individual preferences remain part of how they make decisions.

The final opponent, AURORA, is different. The artificial Grandmaster has no human personality bias at all: Stockfish is unleashed at high strength.