Archazia’s Island Introduces Brand New Lore Cards

Archazias Island Introduces Brand New Lore Cards

Disney Lorcana TCG is set to expand its storytelling in a major way with Archazia’s Island, the latest set arriving at select locations on March 7, 2025, and rolling out to major retailers on March 21. In this Chip and Co exclusive, we spoke with Anna Stosik, Senior Art Director and Lead Art Director for Archazia’s Island, and Nick Webb, Senior Narrative Designer and Lead Narrative Designer for the set, to learn about an exciting new card type-making its debut—Lore Cards. These special cards will offer players a deeper look into the unfolding story of Lorcana, enriching the game’s narrative beyond traditional gameplay mechanics.

As the world of Lorcana continues to grow, Archazia’s Island introduces new locations, characters, and mysteries for players to uncover. However, perhaps the most intriguing addition is the Lore Card, which serves as a window into the rich history and evolving conflict within Lorcana. How will these cards shape the player experience? What stories will they reveal? Anna and Nick shared their insights on how this innovative feature will immerse players even further into the magic of Lorcana’s world.

Related: Lorcana Artwork Puzzles Coming Fall 2025

Chip & Company: How is this Lore Card story unique to the TCG space?

NICK: One of the things that sets Disney Lorcana apart in the TCG space is right there in its name: Disney. To me, the name Disney is almost synonymous with story, and so from the beginning storytelling was very important to us in the development of the cards. Up until now, the concept of Lore has mostly been seen as a gameplay term – to win a game of Disney Lorcana TCG, you have to collect 20 Lore.

With Lore cards, we wanted to give the Lore not only a physical presence in the game to demonstrate what people are playing for, but also to connect the gameplay with the story happening in the set. Lore cards give the player a richer, more immersive, and of course, more fun game experience.

Anna: Archazia is a character original to Disney Lorcana and players get to know her a little bit through the artwork and story in the cards. Lore cards are an extension of that, and an expansion of the popular puzzle cards we have prepared for the previous sets. This time they not only are a beautiful puzzle, but they also symbolize Archazia’s Lorebook and provide space for us to present the new character and her story within Disney Lorcana a bit more.

Chip & Company: What was the most exciting part of the process of developing a unique story?  What about telling the story in a new way?

NICK: I come from the world of novel writing, a storytelling medium that is fairly linear and straightforward. Storytelling in the TCG space is quite different. You’ve got a few hundred cards that you’re not ever going to encounter in any fixed order, and you’re not even guaranteed to see every card. The storytelling is inherently very non-linear. Lore cards were our chance to put the magnifying glass on the story, so to speak. With Lore cards, you still encounter them randomly, but there is a definite order to them, in contrast to the playable cards. It was also our chance to develop the story of our in-game Illumineers a little more.

As players, we are all Illumineers, but within the story of Disney Lorcana, there are a handful of fictional Illumineers that we follow as they discover the realm of Lorcana. We met Shanzay, Martin, and Venturo in The First Chapter, but now in Archazia’s Island, they’re meeting a fourth Illumineer, and realizing that Lorcana has been around for much longer than they thought.

Of course, the real estate on the Lore cards is small, so we’re trying to do as much as we can with the little space available: character development, world-building, and even tying in story moments from specific Disney Lorcana cards. I’d say that was a particularly fun part—going through the card set and finding little details we can allude to in the Lore cards. For players paying close attention, they may even see references to cards from past sets, and see some hints of what is coming.

Related: Disney Lorcana TCG shares upcoming Release Schedule and 9th Expansion

Chip & Company: What do you hope will excite fans most when it comes to this brand-new type of extra card?

NICK: I hope the Lore cards generate more interest in the story and send fans on easter egg hunts throughout all the cards as they search for more bits of the story being told. That’s what’s so fun about this storytelling format: it’s a hunt. Just like we hunt for lore as players in a game of Disney Lorcana, discovering the story of Lorcana is another kind of hunt: we study the artwork of a certain card and connect it to the flavor text of another card, in order to get our “ah-ha!” moments of piecing the story together.

The Lore cards, both the story side and the artwork side, are more clues—more lore—in the players’ hunt to piece together the whole story of Disney Lorcana.

ANNA: Collectors that are able to get all of the cards in order may find a little surprise that we have prepared on the Story-driven side of the cards, which they can find in Aubrey Archer’s art of Archazia looking at the Lore star. Disney Lorcana players rarely get to see the concept art we use to develop sets. Archazia’s Citadel, which we show in the lore cards, was one of the pieces that helped to really define the look of Archazia’s Island and the set overall, so we’re excited to share that artwork developed by Sam Nielson with our players and collectors!

Chip & Company: Is there anything else about Lore Cards you’d like to add?

NICK: Someone on the team pointed out to us that there are many different forms of “play” when it comes to a TCG. There’s the game itself, of course, but play can also be collecting all the cards, or finding your favorite characters or pieces of art. Play can also be in the fun of constructing decks, whether it’s to build a competitive deck or a “just for fun” deck that’s only ducks or only princesses, for example. The story is another form of play—another way to enjoy the game.

I can easily see a situation where parents play the game with an older kid while a younger child is playing and having fun by piecing together the Lore card puzzle art, or the Lore card text in order. That’s another fun aspect of this—making the game even more inclusive of all the different types of Disney and TCG fans out there and finding new
ways to delight and entertain.

Chip & Company: What groundbreaking art design can we expect from Archazia’s Island?

ANNA: As I mentioned before, Archazia’s Citadel, which is one of the artworks you can piece together with the Lore cards, was one of our key concept arts that helped us all to define the visuals of the Island and keep it consistent. Archazia’s Island is a unique, new location that is inkcast by our original character, Archazia.- We really wanted to show her personality through the environments and to connect her Emerald-Sapphire nature to the storytelling in the cards and visuals of the set. You can see some of this through the images we’re revealing today.

Related: Disney Lorcana Reveals its Next Two Sets Coming in 2025

Chip & Company: Discuss the process of storytelling as we approach the epic confrontation with Jafar – how does the storytelling influence the introduction of new glimmers – is that reciprocal? Do new glimmers and Disney characters
guide the narrative of Disney Lorcana?

NICK: The development of a set of cards in a TCG is a surprisingly complicated process involving numerous teams and creative disciplines. Sometimes the game design team comes to us and says, we need a card that does X, and we then try to tell a story around it. Other times we take our story to the game design team and ask them to build some cards around it. Sometimes an artist will draw something really cool that generates a whole new storyline.

So, to answer the question: yes, the process is very reciprocal. Storytelling influences which glimmers we introduce, and new glimmers will influence the story that we tell. Yes, glimmers guide the narrative of Disney Lorcana but not by themselves—they’re accompanied by Illumineers who, while not so visible in the cards (at least before Lore cards!), are instrumental in guiding the story as well.

Regarding the storytelling leading up to Jafar, without revealing too much I’ll just say that this story arc has been in the works for some time. We clearly see hints of it back in Shimmering Skies, and even earlier where we see Ursula’s powerful Hexwell crown. To me one of the most enjoyable aspects of storytelling in the TCG space is seeding a story early on, developing it over many sets, and then having a big payoff down the line. I can’t wait for fans to see what we’ve got in store for them in this set and beyond.

ANNA: In the art, you may notice that many Glimmers have arrived to Archazia’s Island and are learning new tricks by going through various challenges. Apart from the glimmers that have arrived, you will see plenty of animals just resting on the Island that are living there with Archazia, often occupying cozy spaces. Jafar is up to something as well – but we’ll let the fans discover that.

Chip & Company: Does Ravensburger have any plans to revisit some of the earlier sets and expand upon the story of Lorcana?

NICK: I’ll just say that it would be a shame to spend so much time and effort building such immersive settings such as Archazia’s island and the Azurite Sea, only for us to never ever see them again.

Will we expand on the story? The answer is an unqualified “YES!” It wouldn’t be Disney Lorcana if we didn’t.