Arco Is a Minimalist, Beautiful, Pixel-Art Tactics Game Set in the American Frontier

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It's been a while since I've felt so captivated by such a minimalist game as Arco. A simple but effective revenge tale set against the backdrop of early colonial Mesoamerica, it presents its snappy combat and distinctive worldbuilding with an art style that almost looks like something out of the 8-bit era. Yet the sweeping landscapes are never lacking for detail. And the tale woven across them had me hooked from the start.

Nearly all media about the American frontier focuses on the settler experience, so it's refreshing to see that Arco presents a rich, thriving, and diverse Native world as the player's point-of-view, with European "Newcomers" representing a looming, somewhat enigmatic threat. Everything is slightly fantastical, with groups and nations that take inspiration from Mesoamerican and South American indigenous groups, but not too directly modeled after any one real-world society.

And the tapestry they form is treated with the same nuance and depth as the myriad pseudo historical fantasy settings we're used to based on other parts of the world. The hero of the first two chapters, Tizo, is from the Iyo tribe, who are nomadic nature-worshippers traversing green valleys that reminded me of Central California. The Onem are a monastic community with great monasteries built onto the side of a mountain, reminiscent of Andean societies. The mighty Kanek live in massive temple cities in the jungle, reflecting elements of Aztec, Maya, and Toltec cultures. These groups, collectively, are not treated as culturally monolithic, politically unified, or as one-note stereotypes, and fit together in fascinating ways.

In keeping with the tradition of Western storytelling, however, Arco is ultimately a tale of revenge. Tizo was kidnapped as a child by Newcomers and grew up on a Spanish mission. The first chapter is a brief episode from his early life, when the Newcomers were mostly a subject of rumor and superstition. The second picks up with him as an old man wandering the