There’s a rather sad perception in the world at large that board games are for kids, things we should put away when we grow up. Not only does it seem a bit forlorn that we can’t enjoy silly things as we get older, there’s a very wide range of board games that, for the most part, aren’t silly at all. They’re engrossing, rich and demanding of your strategic skills, taking many plays to understand and master, rivalling the depth of centuries-old classic board games like Chess and Go.
So here’s our voyage across the world of grown-up board games, picking out the very best for your gaming table. It spans everything from fantasy and sci-fi to ecological and social themes, and takes in everything in between. There’s sure to be something here that piques your interest, and whatever you pick, it’ll reward the time you put into it handsomely over and over again.
TLDR: Best Board Games for Adults
- Clank! Catacombs
- Hegemony
- Wingspan
- Darwin's Journey
- Spirit Island
- Brian Boru
- Dune: Imperium
- Frosthaven | Gloomhaven: Jaws of the Lion
- Ready Set Bet
- Terraforming Mars
- Root
- Mind MGMT
- Anachrony
- Arkham Horror: The Card Game
Clank! Catacombs
Gamers have spent years waiting for the perfect dungeon-delving board game, but all the candidates tended to either run too long or rely too much on luck. This latest evolution of the popular Clank franchise, where you select cards for a deck that helps you creep through a dungeon to loot treasure without alerting a sleeping dragon, has hit the sweet spot. It enlivened the deck-building aspect with more control, letting you fine-tune your selection for more strategy, while adding a tile-based variable layout to the dungeon itself for tons of variety and replay value. And the sneaking mechanic remains as tense as ever as you draw cubes from the bag, praying not to trigger a dragon attack or swarm of ghosts.
Hegemony
You can’t fault Hegemony for its ambition. It puts each player into the role of the social strata of a country: the working, middle and capitalist classes plus the state itself. Each has its own set of cards, spaces on the board and actions to take that fit into the overall framework of play. At the same time, each class has its own goals, which often involve advancing its own interests against those of other factions, setting up a fascinating balance whereby everyone contributes to keeping things on the rails while trying to inch ahead in the overall stakes. Much like a real society, in fact, even if it is a very simplified model. Between its open social commentary and its intricate strategies, Hegemony has what it takes to keep you hooked for game after game.
Wingspan
There’s no better place to start this list than with one of the most popular and engaging games of the last few years. Wingspan is often sold as a family board game but in truth, it’s a little too complex and challenging for kids. It is pitch-perfect for adults, though, with a perfect weave of tactics and strategy together with a winning theme as you try to attract birds to a nature reserve. Different birds need different foods and habitats but will contribute to your growing ecosystem which becomes a kind of engine, generating resources to allow you to play bigger and more beautiful birds.
Read our review of Wingspan.
Darwin’s Journey
At first, Darwin’s Journey looks like a pretty typical worker placement game. But it has several twists that help it rise to the top of that well-stacked genre. First, the theme is engaging and educational. Second, it’s an excellent example of its type, full of deep, interlocking concepts that span across spatial and economic strategy and reward well-considered strategies. Finally, it offers the novel concept of worker specialisations: some of your pieces - representing crew on your scientific voyage - are better at some actions than others, and you can upgrade their skills as the game progresses.
Spirit Island
A lot of cooperative board games are very family-friendly, but Spirit Island is different. It’s deep and demanding, for one thing, with a commensurate sense of strategic satisfaction when your group pulls off a victory. For another, it boasts a thought-provoking theme of anti-colonialism, with players taking the roles of elemental gods working together to repel a colonizing invader. Winning means using a combination of your native worshippers and your special elemental powers to plan a way of predicting the path of invasion and throwing them back into the sea.
Brian Boru
The titular Brian was a famous king of medieval Ireland, whose campaign of military, social and economic might to unify the island is replicated in this fascinating trick-tacking game. After drafting their cards, players compete in tricks to win control of towns on a map of Ireland, but losing cards net critical resources to use in marriage, supporting the church or seeing off Viking invaders. Failing to balance all these elements can cost you the game, while other players will be competing to steal your tricks away or usurp you on one of the game’s supporting tracks. Check out our Brian Boru review for more details about it.
Dune: Imperium
Dune was one of the movie events of 2021 and it just so happens it’s very well supported with board game spinoffs. Among them is Dune: Imperium, where players are the nobles of the Dune universe, each building their own deck of cards representing their resources, influence and personnel. These can then be played to board spaces to intrigue with other factions or do battle on the planet’s surface, or held for an extra effect on a “reveal” turn. It’s a potent, spicy mixture, forcing players to keep tweaking their deck builds and strategies as the drama unfolds.
Read our Dune: Imperium review for more.
Frosthaven | Gloomhaven: Jaws of the Lion
Topping the “best of lists” of many gamers and critics, Gloomhaven and its sequel Frosthaven are an extraordinary cooperative marriage of story and strategy board game. You’ll run an ever-changing party of characters through a huge narrative campaign, equipping and upskilling them as they experience events and encounters. Exploration and combat unfold via a challenging, tight tactical engine driven by multi-use cards, where failure and death are constant threats for the unwary. Frosthaven is bigger, bolder and better than the original if you can find time in your life for its mammoth amount of content. If the length and price of these behemoths put you off, you can still get most of the pleasure from the cut-down prequel Gloomhaven: Jaws of the Lion.
Read our review of Frosthaven.
Ready Set Bet
There are a lot of games on this list that interpret “adult” as being sober and serious. But we all know that there are advantages to being an adult, too, such as being able to scream and shout and play games with irresponsible themes, such as the horse-racing title Ready Set Bet. It’s a simple, fast-paced affair where you throw betting chips down on a mat indicating which horse you think will win, getting multipliers based on the odds or a penalty if you’re wrong. The catch is that you can add bets as the race progresses, and you see which horses are in the lead, but you can’t supplant an existing bet. This leads to a double-whammy of excitement as the horses thunder down the cardboard while you panic about how early you dare put your stake. Add in special power cards and a variety of prop bets, and you've got a sure-fire winner, even if you lose all your money.
Terraforming Mars
If none of the other games on this list tickles your fancy, then Terraforming Mars’ cross-genre blending might be what you need. In your quest to civilize Mars before your competitors you’ll need to juggle hand management, resource gathering and positional play on the planet’s surface, all these factors tying together into one neat package. Best of all, for a game of this style, they also help conjure a real sense of humanity coloniing the red planet, inch by dusty inch. The different corporation powers and card deals make each game feel new and stop there from being a guaranteed path to victory.
See our list of the best solo board games for more like this
Root
From the box art, you might assume this is a kids’ game about cute woodland animals. In fact, it’s a fascinating and multi-layered exploration of the meaning of power for different groups in society. There are four factions in the game: the traditionalist birds, the industrialized cats, the oppressed woodland folk and the lone Vagabond. Each has its own set of rules and goals to bring to this highly asymmetrical game where you’ll marshal troops and cards to build up your resources, fight and advance your goals. And if the layered strategic puzzle isn’t thoughtful enough, you can discuss the political and philosophical ramifications of the game’s model afterwards.
Mind MGMT
You might never have heard of the psychic espionage comic series on which this is based, but that won’t keep you from enjoying its sublime blend of strategy and surrealism. One player, the recruiter, moves in secret on a hidden map, trying to visit enough recruiting locations to win. The other players work as a team, using a limited pool of actions to try and gain clues to the recruiter’s movements and objectives so they can corner and capture them. A fun new puzzle of bluff and deduction on every play, Mind MGMT is brilliantly enlivened by a series of closed boxes containing extra game elements you can open and add at your leisure. See our complete Mind MGMT review for more info.
Anachrony
Worker placement, where you have a limited pool of pieces to assign to actions on the board, is a common mechanic in mid- and heavy-weight games. Anachrony takes it to the next level by allowing you to “borrow” workers and resources from your future turns as part of its time-traveling theme. Failure to pay back your loans when that turn rolls around has predictably dire consequences. Atop the usual business of juggling the resources you need to climb one of the game’s paths this makes it feel fresh, complex and challenging while also evoking a classic science fiction theme.
Arkham Horror: The Card Game
If you’re looking a good horror board game, Arkham Horror: The Card Game is a no-brainer. The base game comes with a small handful of scenarios that sends you directly into the jaws of cosmic mystery. You can use the suggested starter decks, or build a custom one centered around your chosen investigator’s special abilities. Gameplay sees you hopping from location to location to search for clues in order to advance the story while attempting to impede the deadly Mythos deck. Your investigator will inevitably take damage and acquire weaknesses over time that can affect future games in the campaign, making Arkham Horror: The Card Game one of the most thematic games on this list. Also check out our list of the best deck-building games.
For more ideas, take a look at our picks for the best board games or take a look at the best board games for kids and the best board games for teens for family-friendly options.
Matt Thrower is a contributing freelance board game and video game writer for IGN. (Board, video, all sorts of games!)
