It is never been a better time to be a tabletop gamer, with some of the best board games ever made being widely available and played nowadays. Long gone are the days when you would struggle to get anyone to pick up anything but their nearest licensed version of Monopoly or Cluedo. With all the amazing board games sitting on store shelves, there’s absolutely no excuse not to find something for everyone to enjoy – and there are some absolutely stellar picks on this list of the best board games.
We included a wide variety of board games on this list, both in terms of theme and gameplay. Whether you’re looking for the next co-op game to share with your friends, a new lighthearted title to bring to a party, or a heavier strategic game to get to grips with, you’ll be able to find an entry to fit your criteria. There are scary games, historical games, fantasy titles, and even war-themed board games, meaning that whatever the weather you’ll have a fantastic tabletop title to pop onto the table.
- Root
The designer of Root, Cole Wehrle, has created an astonishingly good catalog of board games, but none outshine the glory that is Root. A board game about warring forest creatures, Root may first appear absolutely adorable – the illustrations by Kyle Ferrin are some of the best in tabletop gaming history – but beneath the woodland whimsy it’s incredibly savage. The war for the great wood is a bloody one and only one faction may be victorious, which means a lot of anguish and cruelty needs to happen first.
- Wingspan
Designer Elizabeth Hargrave’s board game about attracting avians to their natural habitats has quickly become one of the must-play tabletop releases of the last few years, with millions of copies sold and its creator catapulted to stardom.
Wingspan’s acclaim will be little surprise to anyone who’s played before, thanks to its combination of gripping strategic card play and the pastoral charm of its theme. Players take turns to add cards to each of their natural habitats, with every additional card increasing the actions they can perform in a combo on subsequent turns as well as scoring points. Players can choose to gain food to attract further birds, lay eggs to add birds further down each row and draw additional bird cards to play on future turns.
- Unmatched
This isn’t the first time we’re going to be cheeky and include what is essentially a series of games as a single entry on this list, but there isn’t really a superior release in the Unmatched: Battle of Legends franchise. That’s because it’s a series that’s intended to have many entries that can be liberally mixed and matched with one another, but has a core gameplay system holding them all together. The concept of Unmatched is to have a roster of well-known characters – both public domain and licensed – fight one another in an area, with each character having their own unique deck of cards and abilities.