The names Frosthaven and Lost Ruins of Arnak might not mean much to you if you mostly stick to the videogame realm, but in the tabletop world these are some of the most popular releases of the last few years, and both are on their way to Steam in the near future, being adapted for digital play.
Frosthaven is the very popular follow-up to the massively popular Gloomhaven (currently still ranked the #4 best boardgame of all time on BoardGameGeek) and comes from fan-favorite designer Isaac Childres. These deep, campaign-style fantasy RPGs are known for their unique world-building, tactical cardplay systems, and taking up a whole lot of shelf and table space. But thankfully the new Steam version will do away with all that pesky physical overhead.
The Haven games offer lots of juicy deckbuilding and tactics-combat choices, figuring out what to use your cards for and carefully managing your resources, and they play very differently depending on which of the myriad character classes you've chosen. Frosthaven takes the party of adventurers to a derelict frozen outpost they'll slowly build back to strength, choosing how the settlement evolves as they progress through the story scenarios.
Meanwhile, Lost Ruins of Arnak keeps the cards but moves away from the fantasy-RPG trappings: this is a hybrid deckbuilder and worker-placement game, where you'll be taking turns choosing where on the board to send a limited number of explorers. Buying new cards and building up your deck will provide your adventurers with the resources they'll need to venture deeper into this lost continent and deal with the ancient and magical threats they might encounter.
The coming-soon digital version of Arnak was announced recently, and although the first trailer sadly doesn't show us the game in action, it's pretty easy to imagine how it'll go based on a couple of screenshots we do have. This is much more of a straight digital boardgame adaption compared to the full-3D recreation of Frosthaven: the cards, tokens and board spaces you'll be competing for look pretty much identical to the physical version.
It might not be as flashy, but Arnak's blend of mechanics proved highly popular with the boardgame audience (currently ranked #28 on BoardGameGeek, a few slots behind Frosthaven.)
You can wishlist both Frosthaven and Lost Ruins of Arnak on Steam now. Gloomhaven, the predecessor to Frosthaven, has a very well-received digital version you could check out if you want a look into that world and the systems it's known for, and it's on sale for 65% off for another week in the Steam Summer Sale. (It's worth noting that Frosthaven is apparently being developed from the ground-up with a whole new game engine, so I don't know that Gloomhaven really serves as a good preview for the new game... but in terms of the bones of the designs, the mechanics and structure are quite similar.)
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