The Best Board Games

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2021-06-12 19:00:12

Thousands of new board games are published each year, more than our guide to the best board games for beginners could possibly accommodate. Here are a few Wirecutter staff favorites that may not be as approachable for new gamers but have other traits to love. Whether you’re looking for high-level strategy or narrative cooperation or simply something that’s beautiful to see and touch, these are the games that have earned heavy rotation at our game nights—games that we think you’ll love too. If we left out one of your favorites, leave a comment so we can expand our collections.

Why we love it: Between reading and deciphering the dense rulebook and having to correct multiple mistakes on every turn, our first playthrough of Scythe ended up taking six hours. Nonetheless, we were immediately hooked by its immense strategic depth and the beautiful steampunk-meets-pastoral-idyll worldbuilding aesthetic that Wirecutter writer Gregory Han raved about in our 2016 gift guide. Since then, our play times have fallen in line with the 90-to-115-minute estimate, but the game has taken over weekly game nights and inspired a dedicated group chat for discussing strategies, making and sharing memes, and planning impromptu sessions.

In less than two months, we’ve already purchased the seven-player expansion and are seriously considering buying an upgraded custom box to store its many cards and pieces more elegantly. You might be wondering what kind of people want to invest that much time in a game and keep going back to play over and over. But once you learn the mechanics, playing Scythe will be the only thing you want to do.