Review – Arkham Horror: The Card Game Core Set (2026)

Arkham Horror: The Card Game Core Set (2026) is neither a reprint nor replacement for the past Core Set, released in 2021. Instead, this is something of a new start that’s also backwards compatible with sets they’ve already released. Think of it as when a movie series re-casts an actor, or when a comic series gets a new artist but they don’t want to dismiss everything that came before. There is an all new 3-story campaign in this box, as well as 5 new investigators to dive into the dangerous world of Arkham Horror. To help you out, the designers have also tweaked and updated several cards, added new tokens, and made the rulebook easier to read and understand. Read on for the review!

Content Guide

Several cards have blood, either on clothes or weapons or on people themselves. A few cards show someone in the throes of being attacked or attacking, usually with weapons or teeth and claws. Monsters, cultists, evil magic, protection spells, henchmen, and fire-happy bad people will also cross paths with the investigators. 

Review

Arkham Horror: The Card Game Core Set (Arkham Horror hereafter) feels like a reset point for the series, where they don’t want to wipe away any of the content before, but this gives them a chance to tell new stories with different investigators than the usual bunch. Players familiar with the Arkham Horror cast will still recognize a few faces (Joe Diamond makes an appearance in this box) or possibly a few names, as Isabelle Barnes takes up her sister Jenny’s .45s in her quest for revenge. Isabelle was my favorite of the new investigators, as she combined the Survivor and Mystic archetypes in her deck: able to dish out a good fight with cards like her .45 pistols while also using protective spells to deflect damage or find extra clues.  

The 3-part story included in the box won’t take long to play; in fact, if you were bent on finishing it in one sitting, you probably could as long as you were okay with a long session. Investigators show up at Miskatonic University looking for a friend, only to find themselves pulled into a red-hot plot to burn up Arkham from its very core. Or if you’re familiar with the city of Arkham… basically a Tuesday. What’s also cool is some of the setup cards will be random and have extras that won’t always see the light of day, so even if you were to play the game twice in a row, you might have different locations or run into a different cultist during each game. This increase in replayability is most welcome in any Living Card Game. Also, without spoiling anything, I have to give a special shout-out to one of the endings for game 3, which lets you play the hero in a very… let’s say smelly way? 

I wanted to make an Olympics-reference type joke, since this new Arkham Horror comes exactly 5 years after the Revised Core set, which came out 5 years after the original game – but this isn’t another reset. It isn’t the same characters re-doing the same story, it’s something new. It’s a different branch on the same timeline, so even if you owned every single Arkham product that came out in the past 5 years, there’s something here for you. And if you never have played before in your life, you could start with this box and have a lot of fun, and be set up for all the new products coming out later this year. If you love Arkham Horror, or you’ve never played but want to check it out, this Core Set is a great starting place. 

A review copy was provided by the publisher.