It was only a matter of time before someone spliced together cooking sims and virtual deckbuilding. But there was no guarantee the result would see you shuffling together gourmet masterpieces for hordes of ravenous fantasy monsters and the occasional cosmic entity. This is precisely what you'll be doing at the hottest new restaurant in fairyland, Arcane Eats, revealed for the first time during the PC Gaming Show 2025.
Playing as one of three croupier chefs, each of whom has an entirely different cooking style, any given round of Arcane Eats sees you dealing dishes to a trio of fantastical customers from a range of drafted ingredient cards in your hand, combining them to create mightily satisfying meals. You might use sparking star potatoes as the basis for a cosmic casserole, or rustle up some tender owlbear brisket to sate a peckish dwarf.
Satisfying your customers' appetites will earn you gold, which you can spend in town to buy more exotic ingredient cards to shuffle into your deck. Some ingredients add extra flavours to your dish. A sprinkling of black abyss pepper will increase the dish's spice rating, while a slice of golden goose meat will make a dish heavier and more filling.
Other cards might apply a specific effect to a meal, or let you stack further ingredients onto a single plate, enabling you to make more complex concoctions and feed customers with more demanding palettes.
Of course, serving multiple customers at once is tricky, and your reputation is on the line. Hence, you may have to risk disappointing some of your fantasy foodies by prioritising others. Once dishes are prepared, you can choose which of your customers to serve them to get the best overall effect. You can see this in action at the start of the trailer, when a blue backpacking goblin gets denied a mouthwatering meal in favour of the burly office orc next to him.
Alongside cooking and serving food, you'll also have to manage the restaurant itself, recruiting sous chefs and waitstaff to improve your kitchen's efficiency. You'll also need to prepare for surprise visits from both the health and purity inspector, as well as legendary chefs like Guy Fairy and Gorgon Ramsey. Success may see you earn a coveted three Mythril Star rating, while failure may result in the entire realm being consumed by The Hunger.
There's no release date for Arcane Eats yet, but you can find out more about the game on its Steam page.
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