Arcs designer Cole Wehrle has confirmed three upcoming expansions for the hit board game. In a BoardGameGeek blog post from March 24, he says the three products, one for the base game and two for campaign play, will be part of a spring crowdfunding campaign. Arcs fans can apparently expect new decks, map elements, drafting rules, plotlines, and "wild new components". The base game is even getting a fifth player.
Wehrle actually teased many of these expansion features in a Wargamer interview in January. This, however, is concrete confirmation of what Buried Giant - the studio Wehrle co-founded after leaving Leder Games - is working on next. "Though the past few months have had more than their share of difficult business decisions, there's been one that was pretty obvious", he writes.
Expansion number one is titled 'Arcs: Lost Vaults and Fated Leaders', and it's designed to be integrated into the base game. However, players can also cherry pick the features they want to include.
"To facilitate this, we're building an advanced draft mode", Wehrle says. "The hope is to build a framework that stitches these modules together so that players won't have to hem and haw about what content they want to play with."
The new features include "a new court deck with 31 new cards and a fresh set of leaders". "Broadly speaking these leaders are a little simpler than those that already exist and a little more impactful."
Wehrle also promises 8 Fated Leaders with "fairly simple powers" that "also introduce new systems taken mostly from the campaign game". There's also the Lost Vaults, "a set of map elements that can be introduced and can allow you, with the help of a pair of event dice, sculpt randomized maps and include special systems".
Lost Vaults and Fated Leaders also offers pieces for a fifth player. Wehrle says he always thought five players would be possible for Arcs, but it was left out of the original game because the team ran out of time.
"The fifth player introduces a new type of action card that mimics the behavior of the event cards in the campaign game and basically introduces action drafting", he says. "These cards more than compensate for the added chaos of the new player and we might even test those action cards in the context of the four player game."
More players means more excitement, but it doesn't look like extra players is on the cards for campaign play. "Believe me, I want to be able to offer this and I'm fairly confident that it is possible with only a few adjustments", Wehrle says. "But I can recognize a thorny development liability when I see one. I hope we'll be able to provide support for this mode at some point, but it may not happen with this campaign."
As for what campaign play does get, it's expansions called 'Beyond the Reach' and 'Halls of Power'. "Beyond the Reach is meant to be expansive and radical", the blog post says. "You're going to have new plotlines jumping in from outside of the reach, plotlines with secret identities, and lots of wild new components."
"The second box is a little more modest in terms of its scope, but filled with all manner of deviousness", Wehrle adds. "This is where we're putting the really political plotlines and skullduggery." "We haven't set the exact plotlines that will be in each box, but I'm guessing we see 4 As, 2 Bs, 2 Cs in the large box and half as many in the smaller box."
The Kickstarter campaign (which must be soon, if "spring" is when to expect it) promises a discount compared to retail, as well as a chance to pick up screen-printed wooden components. Plus, Wehrle says "we have some add-ons in store as well that we're really excited about, but I'll save those for launch day".
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