My Thoughts after Finishing Arcs: The Blighted Reach Expansion

Welcome to this week’s review! This week I’m discussing the big campaign expansion for Arcs. I previously reviewed the base game of Arcs here, and if you’re interested in seeing what’s in the giant campaign box, you can check out an unboxing here. So without further ado, let’s jump into my thoughts.

Disclosure: A review copy of this game was provided to The Meeple Digest in exchange for an honest, unbiased review. This review is not intended to be an endorsement.

Arcs: The Blighted Reach Expansion is a three act campaign expansion for Arcs, which was one of the most popular games released last year. If you read my initial review for the base game of Arcs, you’ll know that although I found the card/trick-taking mechanism innovative, there was a lot of “take that” that made the game too aggressive and punishing for my tastes. Even though I bounced off of base Arcs, I was still excited to jump into the expansion because of the glowing reviews and how much it proclaims to shake up the Arcs experience. So I jumped into the Blighted Reach with an excited, if slightly cautious mindset. I played the entire campaign over two gaming sessions with a group of four, and here are my thoughts on the experience.

I’ll start off with the best way I can describe The Blighted Reach expansion – it’s an experience. It feels like an event game that reminds me of Twilight Imperium. I’ll attempt to keep this review as spoiler free as possible, but as I mentioned earlier, the expansion is played over three distinct acts, with the first two acts each being three chapters (rounds from the base game) and the final act played out over four chapters. In each act, players take on the role of a fate (think the leaders from the base game but on steroids). Each fate comes with a small deck of cards, their own set of components, and an objective for each act. There are 24 fates, split evenly across the three acts, and at the beginning of acts two and three, players can choose to continue as their same fate from the previous act or play as a new fate from the current act. Most of the gameplay is focused on completing your fate’s objective, and if you complete their final objective during the third act, you’ll automatically win the campaign. If multiple players complete their objective, then ties are broken by the player with the most power (victory points) accumulated over the three acts.

These fates are by far my favorite part of the expansion. Each fate feels unique with the more complex fates having the potential to widely shake up the gameplay. What’s also cool is that even if a player switches fates during the game, some of the previous fate’s components and cards remain in the game. Therefore, by the final act, the state of the game will be widely unique depending on what happened earlier in the game. I can definitely see how certain groups of players could get invested in the stories the game organically tells.

While most of the core mechanisms from Arcs carries over to the Blighted Reach, my entire group all commented on how this expansion feels like a different game, and I would be hesitant to return to base Arcs after experiencing all that the expansion provides. Personally, I found the game to be a lot less combative, in part because players each have objectives that not always lead to “take that” moments. It’s also worth noting that the introduction of the Blight helps in this regard too. The Blight are new tokens that are spreading throughout the Reach, which can damage ships if they are in the same system. By adding in a neutral threat, it created moments of cooperation we all worked together to eliminate the Blight.

Another big addition to the game is the introduction of the Empire and imperial ships. At the beginning of the game, all players start out as Regents under the Empire, with one player taking on the role of The First Regent. Players who are Regents are not allowed to battle each other in systems containing imperial ships as a result of the Truce Law. Players can also move and control these ships, such as in battles against the Blight. Over the course of the game, players can choose to leave the Empire and become an outlaw, which allows that player to freely attack and raid other players. Like the Blight, the introduction of the Empire also enabled cooperation.

There are plenty more additions in the expansion, but the last one I’ll touch on is flagships. Starting in act two, players can choose to dismantle all of their cities and starports on the map and board a flagship. These flagships have their own set of rules and upgrades, but I found it incredibly fun to move my large flagship piece around the map. In particular, one player built up an immense armada of ships around their flagship and became a big wrecking ball around the galaxy.

Since my group played the game over two sessions, we found it useful that the box came with excellent storage trays that made it relatively easy to pack up and set up again. On the subject of components, the box organization is fantastic. The massive campaign box is large enough to fit all of the components from both the base game and the expansion, including two game trays for organizing pieces and four player trays. The box also comes with dividers to help store each of the fate sets of cards and components, which made it easy to pull out a new set when players switched fates. However, while I appreciated the numbers on each of the cards to help with organization, I did have trouble remembering which fate tokens go with which when I went to organize everything at the end of the campaign.

I’ve mentioned some of new content in the expansion and how it felt like a different game in many respects, but the expansion also led to a lot of added complexity. Since each of the fates added more rules and nuances, I found it challenging at times to keep everything straight and caused the game to slow down. I also had to double check the rules often and even then I’m sure we made plenty of mistakes. As with most games, with more plays, things will likely become easier to keep track of, but since the game is quite the time investment, I doubt that most gamers will be able to bring the game out often enough to get an excellent grasp on the rules.

Speaking of the time commitment, the box indicates 60-120 minutes, but that’s likely just for the base game of Arcs because each act of the campaign easily took our group between three to four hours to finish, not counting the rules teach, set up, and take down. Therefore, it probably took our group around ten hours to complete the entire campaign all things included. Add in that like the base game of Arcs, the expansion is probably best played at three or four players, which makes it difficult to imagine that even with repeated plays I could shave the campaign down to a more manageable time length.

So who do I recommend Arcs: The Blighted Reach Expansion to? If you’re a fan of the base game of Arcs, I would bet that you’ll enjoy this expansion too. Even if you tried Arcs and bounced off it like me, I’d still recommend trying this expansion at least once. However, unless you have a dedicated group to play these long and complex “event” games with, I struggle to imagine how often the average gamer would get this game played. And while I take the complexity rating on BGG with a pinch of salt, this game is rated at a 4.5 on BGG in weight, so it’s certainly not for the faint of heart.

Personally, I enjoyed the experience overall, and I’ll likely remember my playthrough of Arcs: The Blighted Reach for quite some time. However, I realistically struggle to imagine coming back to it anytime soon. It’s a long game that requires a sizeable chunk of dedication from the same group to finish, and with an ever growing shelf of games, I only have so much time to dedicate to event games like this. Like I mentioned at the beginning, I’m glad I had the opportunity to experience the Blighted Reach campaign, and I respect the amount of effort that went into crafting this expansion that feels unlike any other game I’ve played. All things included, this experience will certainly make my highlights at the end of the year. However, I may have to accept that it will remain as a memory rather than one I build upon.

With that, I’ll wrap up this week’s review! Have you played the Blighted Reach Expansion? I’d love to hear your thoughts on any of the games I’ve mentioned or future content suggestions in the comments below. Happy gaming!

If you liked this post and want to be notified when new content is released, then follow me on Instagram @themeepledigest.