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Arkham Horror, released in 2005 by Fantasy Flight Games, is a co-operative adventure game set in H.P. Lovecraft's Cthulhu Mythos. The Ancient Ones lurk in the emptiness between space and time and are knocking on the gates between worlds. The only thing standing in the way is a group of investigators who are trying to prevent the Ancient One from breaking through and running a mock on the streets of Arkham. The investigators will be fighting monsters and closing portals across town. If too many portals open the Ancient One awakens and the Investigators must defeat it in combat.
Over the years Fantasy Flight Games have released a host of new content for Arkham Horror including new Investigators, Ancient Ones, cards, locations and new mechanics. The variability and replay-ability is immense and there is a staggering amount of content for the game.
Fantasy Flight have recently announced that they will be releasing a Third Edition of Arkham Horror. The theme and general premise of the Third Edition is pretty much the same as the previous editions. The Third Edition comes with 12 iconic investigators that have unique abilities and starting cards. The starting load out of these characters can be customised before the beginning of the scenario.
What's New?
The traditional board in the Second Edition has been replaced with a double-sided hexagonal modular board in the Third Edition, giving a unique layout for each play-through. Each hexagonal area of the board represents a different region and has a different deck of neighbourhood cards combined with unique events for each scenario increasing the gameplay variability.
The new edition features four new scenarios not seen in the Second Edition and which have more of a narrative feel to them. However, what is interesting is that the objectives of the scenario are unknown at the start of the game and players will have to discover clues to find out the scenario goals and objectives.
The scenarios offer varying branching paths to guide the story, cards are added to the scenario, based on the clues discovered affecting future events and the final outcome of the scenario.
The Mythos Phase has evolved in the Third Edition, and is more akin to Arkham Horror: The Card Game which involves pulling tokens from a bag and only returning them when the bag is empty. This changes the dynamic of this phase as the contents of the bag will be forever changing and the chances of pulling certain tokens from the bag will vary from turn to turn. Scaling for different players counts has been improved here as with fewer players there are fewer effects pulled from the bag.
Closing Thoughts on Arkham Horror Third Edition
On a personal note I never got in to Arkham Horror, by the time I got heavily in to the board gaming hobby and became aware of it there was a host of expansions and content already available. There was just too much content to begin to think about getting in this Cthulhu game. However, with the release of a Third Edition it represents a clean slate to begin with for me and is a game that I am very much interested in getting when it is released.
I am sure there will be a host of expansions and extra content for this edition just as there has been for the second. The Third Edition seems to have learnt from previous editions of the game and incorporated these learning points in to the game. It has added a lot more narrative to the game whilst maintaining the core theme and gameplay of the previous edition.
Arkham Horror Third Edition is set to launch in Q4 of 2018 and is a game that I am hoping to pick up at some point and start dipping my metaphorical toes in to the Cthulhu world. If you don't hear from me again it is probably because I have been devoured by one of the Ancient Ones.
