Board Game Arkham Horror Getting an RPG from Edge Studio

Asmodee and Edge Studio announced the upcoming release of Arkham Horror: The Roleplaying Game. The game will launch as a boxed starter set available at Gen Con 2024 with a worldwide release coming on August 2.

The game will use the Dynamic Pool System (DPS), a d6 dice pool system with mechanics that “are easy to learn but contain strategic depths that are sure to entertain even expert TTRPG players”. The initial adventure, Hungering Abyss, will be divided into 10 scenes each playable in an hour or more.

The boxed set will include a 48-page adventure book, a Game Master’s reference board, 5 character portfolios, 24 six-sided dice (12 black and 12 green), 3 double-sided poster maps, 16 NPC profile cards, 21 item and spell cards, 3 punchboards of tokens and puzzles, and “several handouts”. All hobby stores that are part of Asmodee’s Hobby Next Program will have an additional set of dice as a bonus.

The original board game from Fantasy Flight Games originally came out in 2005. Players choose their investigator and explore the titular city of Arkham in the 1920s attempting to arm themselves with the items, skills, and spells they need to close the gateways spread across the city before the Ancient One arises. A living card game was also released in 2016.

Arkham Horror: The Roleplaying Game Starter Set will be available at Gen Con 2024 and in stores in the USA, Canada, UK, Denmark, Finland, Norway, Sweden, and “some other European countries” on August 2, 2024, with a retail price of $34.99.

 

[Staffan]

I have a novel idea/suggestion for Asmodee, why not properly support the Arkham Horror board game instead. Since they released Arkham Horror 3rd edition in 2018, they haven't republished any of better expanions like Dunwich, Innsmouth, Kingsport or Miskatonic. Those are all long out of print and the preowns scarce. They now really only support the card game, which they know they can milk for all it's worth due to lower production costs.

Arkham 3e is really a completely different game than Arkham 2e. I've only played 3e once, and I did not particularly care for the experience. That might have been because we played with a lot of players, which meant that a whole lot of crap happened all at once in the Mythos phase, and things often progressed before we had a chance to fix them. They have released three expansions: Dead of Night, Under Dark Waves (which is supposed to include Innsmouth and Kingsport stuff), and Secrets of the Order.

If you enjoy Arkham 2e, I strongly recommend Eldritch Horror – it is a very similar experience, but streamlined and much more adapted to each Ancient One (at the cost of only getting four AOs in the core box, and even they kinda need the Forsaken Lore expansion to get the proper amount of stuff). The last expansion was released in 2018 though, but I don't really feel the game needs any more expansion – I don't even have the last one, and I don't feel like I've played it enough to get bored with what I have.

I would also challenge the idea that a board game needs expansions to "be supported". In my experience, expanding a board game means walking a fine line – it's real easy to add a bunch of stuff that dilutes the aspects that people actually liked about the game – particularly in card-based games like Arkham 2e and Eldritch. In Eldritch Horror, they have managed a part of this problem by making some of the new stuff dependent on playing either with a particular Ancient One or with a particular Prelude. So unless you're fighting the Elder Things, Antarctica is not in play.

I'm not impressed at how Asmodee has handled this franchise and aren't interested in any TTRPG one of their subsidiaries cares to publish. I'd have too many concerns about how well they'd fund it a few years down the road. I'm also very content with CoC 7 for anything with an Arkham backdrop that I'd want to run or homebrew.