A new chapter for Arkham Horror

Fantasy Flight Games (FFG), the publisher and designer of Arkham Horror: The Card Game and many other Arkham properties, had hinted heavily earlier this year that significant changes were coming to the game, including no longer printing some products. The first piece of official information could be found in the latest FAQ. There is an explanation of the concept of environments, with one called "Current" consisting of the last three cycles, plus the core box and standard investigators, and another one called "Legacy" including all cards ever printed. FFG announced at the end of October the core idea of these changes during the Arkham week. The game now enters in its Chapter 2 era.

The designers have stressed multiple times this is not a new edition of the game, hence the use of the word "chapter". By that they mean the currently available cards will still be compatible, but their work will be focused on the new material, namely the moving Current environment. To launch this new chapter, a new Core Box was announced, a few cards were spoiled, and a promise to share more information at the end of the month was made. This new Core box will be the base of the Current environment, retiring the old Revised Core, as much on the player card side as with new base encounter cards.

I think this move was necessary. It provides a new clear launching point for new players, but more importantly, it allows the designer to anchor the environment philosophy. It's not just about design space, needing to consider every card that was ever printed to balance the game, but also about consistency in card distribution. In the old model, or Chapter 1 if you prefer, a level-0 card could be found in one campaign, and its experience upgrade in a different one, sometimes several cycles later. I don't expect this pattern to continue; I expect the base and upgrade path to be more self-contained. It avoids the need to keep more product in print. One of the company's stated goals is to reduce the number of products in print for inventory and distribution management. It also should make designs sleeker and easier to execute.

This new Core 2026 will contain a mix of reprints and new cards. We don't know the proportions yet, but so far with the reveals, it seems to be roughly about one-third reprints. This is a good move to keep the existing player base motivated. Many Arkham players are collectors, if not completionists, and they will want to own the new cards.

The new chapter also offers an opportunity to the designers to have more consistent wording for similar effects or to simply clarify some phrases that could leave room for interpretation. It's been an issue over the game's lifespan (10 years!) and we are already seeing efforts on this front within the card reveals. We've also seen a neat design evolution regarding tests. Rather than going the long way of writing "rather than using the normal stat, use this one", the new cards simply have a stat symbol next to the actionable word indicating which stat to use.

Some investigators will have a second version in this Chapter 2 as confirmed with the reveal of Joe Diamond being in the Core 2026. I have no issue with this, especially if these new versions have different signature abilities. Again, for balancing purposes in a Current environment, it makes sense to redo investigators. In that vein, I expect an announcement soon about new Standard Investigator Packs to replace the old.

FFG also confirmed they are aiming to publish 4 products each year in this Chapter 2. That's something I discussed with a few friends; with the end of the reprints of older materials, the company needed a plan to keep the hype going year-round, and this seems to address this. We do not have details yet about the nature of these products.

What does it change for me?

I was already interested in the Current Environment format. I like deck-building challenges, and this was a way to fuel this. Now, I'm even more pumped. I like the giant reset on the game and am hopeful this will allow them to explore new designs.

To be honest, I'm also considering Chapter 2 to be a different game. I'm already thinking about storage solutions to keep an archive and current sets of cards. In my solo plays, which consist of the majority of my games, I will probably almost exclusively play in the Current Environment from the beginning. With two friends, we play roughly one campaign every quarter, and no decision has been made. One of them already stated he's going to play with all his cards all the time; otherwise, it would be wasting money for him. That's fine; that's his prerogative. The other isn't set yet but has shown a more open mind so far. We'll see when the first campaign is out. It could even be a mix of Current and legacy decks; it doesn't really matter as long as everyone has fun.

That's my key point in all of this. As long as your table is having fun, whatever you do is fine. Whatever you do to have fun doesn't impact me, and vice versa. We still have plenty of time to think and talk about this; the new Core 2026 box isn't set to hit the American stores until April 2026, and whenever elsewhere.