Arkham Horror’s lengthy history in the tabletop gaming world continues to expand. The latest addition is the new core set for Arkham Horror: The Card Game. Originally released in 2016, the game has seen numerous expansions over the years that have expanded its storytline, but this year’s launch represents a new chapter and ideal jumping on point for new players.
We reached out to game designers Duke Harrist, Nicholas Kory, and Reid Bradshaw about the new installment, what both new and established players can expect, and why the card game (and broader Arkham Horror fiction) has had such staying power. We featured the game in our newest issue of Game Informer, and here you can read our full interview with the design team behind the new core set.
GI: For newcomers to the franchise, what is Arkham Horror, and how would you characterize it tonally as part of the broader Cthulhu mythos?
Bradshaw: For over a hundred years, the Cthulhu Mythos have incorporated the work of thousands of artists and storytellers into an ever-evolving “weird fiction” setting, one which posits that the reality humanity knows is merely one tiny facet of a much greater, crueler cosmos in which monsters beyond our comprehension could wipe out our species by accident, and there would be little we could do to stop them. The Arkham Files, and in this case specifically Arkham Horror: The Card Game, are Fantasy Flight Games’ own unique take on this communal setting. While the broader Mythos are often categorized as “cosmic horror”, the Arkham Files fall more into the spin-off genre of “pulp horror”; and like its many pulp peers, the Files reach into that definition of the Mythos above and make one tiny change. There may be little we can do to stop the monsters beyond our ken, but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try.
Grab your shotgun, your spellbook, and your most trusted allies and give that cruel, uncaring universe a battle it’ll never forget! Even if you don’t survive, your death may yet save others, slow the forces of evil, and buy humanity a few more days in the sun. Pulp horror like the Arkham Files says the forces arrayed against us may be vast and incomprehensible, but they can still bleed, and through great sacrifice we may yet see them vanquished. It’s absolutely my favorite kind of story, and as a player of Arkham Horror LCG it’s a story you’ll get a chance to tell over and over again at your gaming table.
GI: The new core set is being positioned as Chapter 2 of the Arkham Horror card game, but also as a fresh starting point for new players. Can you share broad strokes about the storytelling that precedes Chapter 2 in the earlier releases of the card game?
Harrist: Campaigns for Arkham Horror: The Card Game tend to be pretty self-contained, so for new players, there’s very little to catch up on. You don’t need to have defeated Hastur in The Path to Carcosa before taking on Dagon and Hydra in The Innsmouth Conspiracy. We leave it to players to form their own head canon about which events take place when, even though everything is generally set in the roaring 20s.
However, we temporarily broke from that convention with last year’s The Drowned City campaign. In it, Cthulhu wreaks havoc on Arkham despite the investigators’ best efforts, leaving the city and its inhabitants permanently changed. The stories new players will experience in the new core set and Chapter 2 products take place roughly six months after the destruction of Arkham. The city struggles to rebuild itself as outside investors arrive, vying for control. While new players don’t need to know anything about what happened before, this changed landscape provides a fertile backdrop for new horrors, as players will see in future expansions like the upcoming Children of Blood campaign.
GI: What is a living card game, and how is it different from traditional collectible or ongoing card game experiences? What happens after a person or play group completes a playthrough of this new core set?
Bradshaw: The most important aspect of an LCG is that the contents of every product are fixed—with no random booster packs or “rarity differences” between cards, you’ll always know what you’re getting from each purchase. Additionally, LCGs are built around an accessible “evergreen” entry point designed to onboard each new player in the same way. In Chapter Two, that’s our brand-new Core Set—an introductory product containing both an exciting new tutorial campaign, and a collection of starting player cards that will support your collection going forward no matter what character, class, or format you choose to play.
After you’ve played through that introductory experience a few times, if you’re hungry for more Arkham, awesome! The two ways you can expand your experience are by picking up either new player card products or new story products. Player card products will expand your suite of weapons, allies, spells, skills, tricks and tactics for combatting the Mythos, and may also come with new characters for you to build decks around. Story products, on the other hand, offer you additional scenarios or campaigns to drag your long-suffering investigators through, solving fresh mysteries and battling ever-more-horrific Mythos threats. Regardless of which expansions you prioritize, AHLCG is designed such that every player card product creates a new play experience for each campaign you already own, and vice versa. The depth of your collection, and the unique experiences it contains, expand exponentially with every product you buy.
GI: In brief, how is a game of Arkham Horror: The Card Game played? Is it cooperative or competitive? What do you do during a session of play?
Kory: Arkham Horror: The Card Game is a cooperative card game in which players control a single investigator. Each investigator must bring a pre-constructed deck of player cards to every game, which represents that investigator’s tools, weapons, allies, skills, and personal weaknesses. Working together, the investigators to travel to new locations, discover clues, and fight off cultists and monsters, all while working to advance the story before the evil servants of the mythos complete their agendas. Regardless of whether players win or lose, they still continue the campaign with the trauma, victories, and losses incurred during their previous scenarios. Each scenario in a campaign will progress the story, present new and unique challenges, and offer changes based on choices made and resolutions reached in previous scenarios.
GI: How have the game rules changed in this new installment, as compared to the prior core set and expansions?
Kory: Most of the rules in the 2026 core set have remained largely unchanged from previous core sets. Our desire was not to make any previous purchases obsolete. We wanted to provide new players a great opportunity to get into the game, while also giving long term players more cards to supplement their collection.
GI: What can you share about the story direction for this new core set, and what lies beyond in subsequent expansions to the game?
Harrist: Our first goal for the Brethren of Ash campaign (included in the core set) was to introduce new players to the world of Arkham. As such, the story needed to encapsulate the absolute essentials of an Arkham campaign. In it, investigators are pulled into a deadly conspiracy, learn of a dark cult, and must scour Arkham for clues in hopes of stopping a deadly ritual. It needed to be narratively and mechanically straightforward, as it sets expectations for what stories the game can tell and what players can do within those stories.
Going forward, we intend to focus on different aspects of the Arkham Mythos and feature both new and returning Ancient Ones. The first few story products will take place in Arkham, but there are many other parts of the Mythos we haven’t yet explored. Future stories all take place in the same time frame after the reconstruction of Arkham, but like previous campaign products, each story is entirely self-contained. That said, there is a grander plot unfolding in the background that we’re excited for fans to discover as they play through Chapter 2 and experience other stories in Arkham.
GI: Who are some of the characters or investigators that players can control in the new game? Can you share a couple of examples of the individuals who will be showing up?
Bradshaw: The investigators of Arkham Horror come from all walks of life, and are an expansive cast ranging from car mechanics to secret agents to actual, full-on wizards! Whoever you are, if your response to being confronted with the horrors of the Mythos is to stand up and fight for the world you know, delve deep into the secrets of this impossible reality, or even just channel the indomitable human spirit and do everything you can to survive…you might be an investigator.
As for the five investigators you’ll find ready and raring to go in the Chapter Two Core Set, some—like gun-slinging, clue-finding private detective Joe Diamond—have been a part of the setting since the original first edition of Arkham Horror back in 1987. Others have joined the cast over the many years (and spin-off games) since. In particular, troubled vigilante Izzie Barnes is making her first appearance as a playable character, after being saved from the hands of a dangerous cult by her sister Jenny…at the cost of Jenny herself being cast out past the end of time itself! Izzie has taken up her sister’s guns and sworn to enact vengeance on the dark forces that plague Arkham, all while searching for a way to bring Jenny back home.
GI: For longtime players of the card game, what do you feel are some of the big reasons to be excited about this new installment, beyond the obvious draw of new cards, stories, and adventures?
Harrist: This core set offers longtime players the opportunity to experience a brand new cardpool from the ground up. The design team made many intentional choices to rebalance class identities, weapon types, and other basic tools players will use, with the hope that it creates a solid foundation for fun and inventive designs. We also hope that longtime players try playing the core set campaign with just the new player cards in the box, rather than slotting them in with old cards. This is a fairly rare experience, and one we hope returning players sieze.
With the new product types and reduced length of some campaigns, the design team has also put a special emphasis on replayability. Our hope for returning players is that they would be able to play campaigns in Chapter 2 multiple times and have new experiences and challenges each time. This manifests in different ways, from product to product, is a unifying design principle we keep in mind going forward.
GI: Can you share anything about the organized play options that might be accompanying this new chapter in the Arkham Horror: The Card Game era?
Kory: We are excited to be continuing much of the same organized play traditions as we move forward with this new core set – events at gaming conventions like GenCon with special promotional materials, and unique epic multiplayer experiences to allow more than four players to play the same scenario. The design team is very excited to see the Arkham Horror community continue to grow, starting with this new core set and moving forward with every thrilling expansion in Chapter 2!
