# The best board games of all time

The highest-ranked games in BoardGameGeek's overall ranking, built from hundreds of thousands of player ratings. Expansions aren't ranked there, so they're not here either.

- 219 votes · 33 items
- Jan 21, 2026 · Cole Sandhu
- https://even.best/en/l/32/the-best-board-games-of-all-time

## Top 25

1. **Dune: Imperium** (14 · ▲14 ▼0) — Paul Dennen's 2020 mix of deck-building and worker placement in Frank Herbert's universe.
2. **Ark Nova** (13 · ▲13 ▼0) — Mathias Wigge's 2021 game about building a modern zoo and funding conservation projects.
3. **Brass: Birmingham** (12 · ▲13 ▼1) — Martin Wallace's economic game (2018) about canals, railways and industry in the Industrial Revolution; BGG's number one.
4. **Gloomhaven** (9 · ▲10 ▼1) — Isaac Childres' 2017 dungeon-crawling campaign in a box weighing almost 10 kg.
5. **Pandemic Legacy: Season 1** (8 · ▲10 ▼2) — Rob Daviau and Matt Leacock's 2015 co-op campaign where the board changes permanently game by game.
6. **Dune: Imperium – Uprising** (8 · ▲10 ▼2) — The 2023 standalone follow-up to Dune: Imperium, adding spies, sandworms and six-player teams.
7. **Slay the Spire: The Board Game** (6 · ▲8 ▼2) — The cooperative board-game adaptation of the deck-building video game.
8. **Twilight Imperium: Fourth Edition** (6 · ▲6 ▼0) — The 2017 edition of the epic space-empire game; a full game can last a whole day.
9. **The Castles of Burgundy** (6 · ▲6 ▼0) — Stefan Feld's 2011 dice-driven game about developing an estate in medieval France.
10. **Eclipse: Second Dawn for the Galaxy** (6 · ▲6 ▼0) — The 2020 edition of the space 4X game of exploration, expansion, exploitation and extermination.
11. **War of the Ring: Second Edition** (5 · ▲7 ▼2) — A two-player game covering the whole War of the Ring from The Lord of the Rings.
12. **Gaia Project** (5 · ▲6 ▼1) — The 2017 science-fiction reimagining of Terra Mystica, with factions colonizing planets.
13. **Through the Ages: A New Story of Civilization** (5 · ▲5 ▼0) — Vlaada Chvátil's card-driven civilization game, revised in 2015.
14. **Terraforming Mars** (4 · ▲5 ▼1) — Jacob Fryxelius' 2016 game about corporations making Mars habitable.
15. **Spirit Island** (4 · ▲5 ▼1) — R. Eric Reuss' 2017 co-op game where island spirits drive off colonizers.
16. **SETI: Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence** (4 · ▲4 ▼0) — Tomáš Holek's 2024 game about scanning the sky and launching probes in search of alien life.
17. **Lost Ruins of Arnak** (4 · ▲4 ▼0) — The 2020 mix of deck-building and worker placement exploring an uncharted island.
18. **Star Wars: Rebellion** (3 · ▲4 ▼1) — Corey Konieczka's 2016 asymmetric game: the Empire hunts for the hidden Rebel base.
19. **Frosthaven** (3 · ▲4 ▼1) — The 2022 standalone sequel to Gloomhaven, set in a frozen northern outpost.
20. **Brass: Lancashire** (3 · ▲4 ▼1) — The 2018 revised edition of Martin Wallace's original Brass, set in Lancashire's cotton industry.
21. **Concordia** (3 · ▲4 ▼1) — Mac Gerdts' 2013 trading game across the Roman Empire.
22. **Scythe** (3 · ▲3 ▼0) — Jamey Stegmaier's 2016 game set in an alternate 1920s Europe with giant mechs.
23. **The Lord of the Rings: Duel for Middle-earth** (2 · ▲4 ▼2) — The 2024 two-player game based on the 7 Wonders Duel system, set in Middle-earth.
24. **Twilight Struggle** (2 · ▲3 ▼1) — The 2005 two-player Cold War game between the USA and the USSR.
25. **Great Western Trail** (2 · ▲3 ▼1) — Alexander Pfister's 2016 game about driving cattle to Kansas City.
26. **7 Wonders Duel** (1 · ▲2 ▼1) — Antoine Bauza and Bruno Cathala's 2015 two-player version of 7 Wonders.
27. **Agricola** (1 · ▲2 ▼1) — Uwe Rosenberg's worker-placement farming game from 2007, a modern classic.
28. **Azul** (1 · ▲2 ▼1) — Michael Kiesling's tile-drafting game inspired by Portuguese azulejos, Spiel des Jahres 2018.
29. **Catan** (0 · ▲2 ▼2) — Klaus Teuber's 1995 trading and building game, one of the best-selling modern board games.
30. **Nemesis** (-1 · ▲3 ▼4) — Adam Kwapiński's 2018 semi-cooperative survival game on a spaceship full of aliens.
31. **Wingspan** (-1 · ▲1 ▼2) — Elizabeth Hargrave's 2019 engine-building game about attracting birds, winner of the Kennerspiel des Jahres.
32. **Gloomhaven: Jaws of the Lion** (-2 · ▲3 ▼5) — The 2020 smaller, beginner-friendly standalone version of Gloomhaven.
33. **A Feast for Odin** (-2 · ▲2 ▼4) — Uwe Rosenberg's 2016 Viking-themed game of worker placement and tile-laying.

How is this ranking ordered? By people's votes: each ▲ adds a point and each ▼ takes one away. Anyone can vote and add what is missing.