Eldritch Horror
1–8 players | Ages 13+ | 2 hours or more| $60
It’s hard not to compare 2013’s Eldritch Horror to its older brother Arkham Horror. They’re both big-box Lovecraftian cooperative games from Fantasy Flight. A lot of the assets and artwork have been re-used, as have characters and core mechanics. But the two games play very differently.
Eldritch Horror is a jaunt about the globe, fighting monsters and closing rifts in space-time before a hideous ancient one awakens and gobbles up the globe. At the end of each round, you’ll get an encounter based on where you are and what else is happening at that location, be it clues or gates or monsters.
There are two main mechanics integrated into the core Eldritch Horror system. One is the White-Wolf-derivative dice system. You perform rolls with a handful of D6, whose number is determined by your skill level, and you want 5s or 6s to succeed.
The other involves cards with hidden effects — when the card is activated, you flip it over to see what happens. This mechanic in particular is really cool, and I wish Arkham Horror used it.
But there are problems in Eldritch Horror. In particular, the scope of the game is too large to get invested in. You’re not battling with the depths for control of a small town. You’re battling for the safety of the world. And it’s hard sometimes to see one lone Cthuggin in Tunguska as a big deal. Sure, the mechanics are a little more balanced here. But the theme is too thin to convince people to devote three hours of play — plus an intense setup — to the game.
Eldritch Horror is an excellent example of a game that tried to shun the “Ameritrash” label — that tried to put design ahead of theme — and failed at both, instead. If you want a well-balanced longform game, you want something like Diplomacy, or Puerto Rico. If you want a game where theme is king, you want Arkham Horror. Eldritch Horror will sit listless on your shelf, pulled down occasionally, but rarely finished.
