The classic edition of Arkham Horror is getting a deluxe rejuvenation with new quality of life components, new art, and more.
This past week, Fantasy Flight Games revealed the first in their new “Vault” series, a remastered edition of the much-beloved 2nd edition of Arkham Horror. Originally published back in 2005, Arkham Horror 2nd edition was a second edition of an already venerable game (first published in 1987) inspired by both the original works of horror writer H.P. Lovecraft and the booming Call of Cthulhu RPG inspired by the same author.
What resulted was a wonderfully complex and extremely challenging board game chock full of the polished art and components that came to define Fantasy Flight Games’ burgeoning line of adventure board games. Although Arkham Horror has been supported in a third edition, this version of the game is very different from its previous incarnations, leaving some fans disappointed. This remastered edition looks like a return to form and I, for one, am very excited about it.
Remastered & Re-Animated
The first Vault Series campaign from Fantasy Flight Games brings back the classic Arkham Horror board game in an amazing Remastered edition. Gather your investigators and embark on a dark adventure to prevent a nightmarish Ancient One from taking over. The Remastered edition brings the classic gameplay from the 2005 version, upgraded with new quality of life components, new art and graphics, cleaned-up rules, and much more!
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This is cool stuff for sure. The few teasers we’ve seen show off a board that will be familiar in overall design to players familiar with the second edition game, but with cosmetic updates to freshen the game after its decades-long slumber. It also more fully matches the aesthetic of Fantasy Flight’s current line of Arkham Files games (which all spawned from Arkham Horror).
It looks like all the classic components are here, with standees for characters, thematic dice, piles of cards for equipment, enemies, and status effects like insanity or injury, and of course, piles and piles of tokens. As well, it seems we’ll be receiving some quality-of-life upgraded components, including what looks like an improved “Doom Track” and other peripherals to track the game’s numerous statuses and countdowns.
Details are thin on the ground on exactly what form this “remastered” edition will take, but it sounds like it will be a core game with several additional expansion boxes. I absolutely loved the Dunwich and Innsmouth expansions from the 2005 edition and hope we’ll see those return.
Arkham Horror second edition could be a punishing experience, though that’s part of the fun. Mixing and matching expansions was also a great feature of the game, and I hope we see that ability to really customize your experience maintained.
The Vault
Arkham Horror Remastered is just the first in what Fantasy Flight Games promises will be an ongoing series of resurrected out-of-print games and editions. They have a tremendously deep well to draw upon, and there are a number of games I’d love to see return. Chaos in the Old World was a fantastic board game, and I’d love to see that get this kind of “remastered” treatment. Battlestar Galactica was another now-defunct game that was a blast. I’m not sure if they still have access to that license, but a guy can wish, right?
What’s your all-time favorite defunct game from Fantasy Flight?
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Simon Berman has been a wargamer since 1993 and has worked in the tabletop games industry since 2008 as a staff writer for the first three editions of WARMACHINE and HORDES. These days he’s the General President of the Brush Wielders Union, a worldwide organization of miniatures painters of all skill levels, a freelance games writer who has contributed to a number of roleplaying games like Eclipse Phase, Dune: Adventures in the Imperium, and The Hammer and the Stake. He runs his own small-press publishing company, Strix Publishing, and paints more miniatures than he can keep track of. Simon lives with his wife in Tacoma, Washington along with a number of cats and a pack of savage wiener dogs.
Source: Bell of Lost Souls
