Players portray space faring societies, and attempt to win by obtaining galactic supremacy,[1] gaining points by fulfilling various objectives called "ambitions",[2] which include constructing buildings, upgrading their respective spaceships, gathering resources from the various planets depicted on the board, and waging war.

[8] Initially marketed during development as Arcs: Collapse and Conflict in the Void, the game was announced on October 3, 2021.

At this point, Wehrle described it as a "short campaign game" playable in 2 to 4 sessions for 3 to 4 players and with a total run time of five hours maximum.

[9] On May 3, 2022,[10] A Kickstarter campaign was scheduled for May 24 until June 14 that year, with shipment to backers estimated to begin in December 2023.

He designed the campaign expansion as a "three-act structure", in which the acts were individual playthroughs that each flowed into the next game through analog "procedural generation".

[1] In March 2023, while Arcs was in its early access development stage, Wehrle stated that the game would feature a two-player mode, requiring a restriction of the size of the map, alteration of how cards were drawn and change to how players gained resources and scored points.

Rob Wieland of Forbes praised the game for its speed compared to Twilight Imperium, Eclipse and Star Wars: Rebellion.

[2] Bell of Lost Souls compared the game to "if Warhammer 40,000 stopped pretending it wasn't as goofy and silly as it is" and called it a "space opera".