Cole Wehrle's asymmetric space epic just picked up another award. Italian tabletop magazine ioGioco has named Arcs its 2025 Game of the Year and crowned Italian designer Paolo Mori as its Game Designer of the Year, capping a strong run for both.
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Start organising for freeIf you've not played it, Arcs is a tightly wound, two-to-four-player strategy game in which space empires backstab each other across a shared galaxy using a card-driven trick-taking system that punishes you for not paying attention. It sits above 8.0 on BoardGameGeek, picked up a Kennerspiel des Jahres recommendation, and has now collected awards everywhere from the Golden Geeks to Italy. Wehrle, who designed Root and Oath, has since left Leder Games to launch Buried Giant Studios; the new studio's debut Arcs: Beyond the Reach expansion has already passed $1.3M on Kickstarter.
Mori, the night's other winner, is a Parma-based designer with nearly forty games to his name including Libertalia: Winds of Galecrest (republished by Stonemaier in 2022), Dogs of War, Augustus and Blitzkrieg!. He also took the Two-Player Game category alongside Alessandro Zucchini for Toy Battle.
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Set up your group for freeThe more interesting story sits underneath the awards in ioGioco's reporting. Italy's tabletop sector grew 27% in value year-on-year, with over 800 new titles released in the country last year and trading card games leading the charge. That puts Italy alongside the UK and Germany as one of Europe's most active gaming markets, and explains why publishers like MS Edizioni (who handle Arcs in Italian) are getting more aggressive with English-language releases.
Other ioGioco winners worth knowing: Memoir '44 New Edition took Wargame, Splendor Kids won Children's Game, and The Breach picked up Aesthetic & Production Quality.
Sources: BoardGameWire | BGG: Arcs
