Arcs is the most lucid title Cole Wehrle has created — and that’s speaking for someone whose ludography is packed with crisp thesis statements. It’s come such a long way in the two years since I previewed the prototype that there’s really no point drawing comparisons. The obvious lodestar is Oath; like that game, Arcs exhibits the long, ahem, arc of history, the way identities and meanings weather or buckle under the weight of time. But Arcs is the more resolute of the two, a game built as much on hindsight as with the benefit of additional years of experience.

It is sublime. It’s also a difficult game to pin down, arrayed like a blossom. Let’s start with the stem.

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Where last week’s examination of Arcs, the upcoming title from Cole Wehrle and Leder Games, focused on Arcs as an experience meant to be completed within a single session, today we’re delving into the “arcs” of Arcs. That’s right: I’ve completed two full campaigns. That’s six plays, a few branching narratives, and two galaxies brought under the reign of a single power.

I have some thoughts.

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Whenever I mention Arcs, the upcoming four-letter title from Cole Wehrle and Leder Games, everybody wants to know about the campaign, the three-session “arc” that will chart the ascent of four players amid the decline of a stellar empire. It’s a fascinating premise, and not only because it formalizes the playful and open-ended concept of a non-legacy board game that rolls over from one session to the next that Wehrle introduced in Oath.

This preview is not about that. At some point in development, Arcs was split in two. To mitigate costs and the danger of tossing a gaming group out the airlock before they’ve had a chance to suit up, the campaign is now a day-one expansion. Arcs, the core game anyway, is now a single-session board game. Which up until very recently was just called “a board game.”

How is Arcs sans arc? Let’s take a look.

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