The first thing to say is that both these core sets are standalone. (Pssst If you've not heard that term before: it just means you can play them without needing any other DARK SOULS: The Board Game products.) That makes them perfect if you're a new fan looking to get into the game. But what about our awesome existing players? Well, we're pleased to say both core sets are FULLY backwards compatible, so you can use them with ANY DARK SOULS: The Board Game products you own. Painted World of Aramis and Tomb of Giants each explore an iconic location from the original DARK SOULS video game, including renowned enemies from the Painted World and Tomb of Giants, including fan favourite Gravelord Nito. But it's not just new miniatures to play with and new locations to explore (although there's plenty of that to be getting on with)... While millions of you have played and loved DARK SOULS: The Board Game, we've got plenty of feedback from players over the years on how they like to play their games, and small adjustments we could make. Well… We listened. To create DARK SOULS: The Board Game Tomb of Giants, and DARK SOULS: The Board Game Painted World of Ariamis, our development team opened an invaluable dialogue with our wonderful community. From this meeting of minds emerged a, refreshed core ruleset including several of the suggestions we've received from our community. It's still definitely recognisable as DARK SOULS: The Board Game, but features a new, more in-depth campaign system, a new encounter system including exciting and varied new objectives and combat-puzzle gameplay, and lots more Centuries ago, a half-dragon creature was sealed inside a painting for crimes unknown. Though she believed the painting's inhabitants harmless, any adventurer who manages to invade this world might find otherwise.Confront the fan favourite Crossbreed Priscilla and the rest of the painting's strange denizens with DARK SOULS: The Board Game, Painted World of Ariamis, featuring new foes, player characters, treasures, event cards, objective cards, and more Painted World of Ariamis gives you an evocative new area to explore from the original DARK SOULS video game, in a standalone core set containing everything needed for thrilling campaigns in Lordran. No other purchase is necessary.It's also backwards compatible with all other DARK SOULS: The Board Game products, so you're free to combine monsters from different areas for expanded campaignsA criticism often levelled at dungeon crawl games is that they can be grindy and repetitive, but Tomb of Giants' new-and-improved ruleset incorporates community feedback and suggestions to create a streamlined campaign system, with events and objectives to keep every encounter exciting and unpredictable.