My Favorite Board Games Of 2025
This year was full of good board games. From best-of-the-year contenders to our personal top picks, these are some of our favorites of 2025.
It’s been a great year for good board games. Between brand new games, successful Kickstarters, and revamps or reskins of long-time favorite games, there have been a ton of choices for game night. And from contenders for best board game of the year, to our personal favorites, these are some of our top games of 2025.
Vantage
Vantage is a super interesting and unique game. It’s cooperative, but you’re playing somewhat by yourself. It’s an open-world, but players are in their own corner of the world. Everyone works together to survive on an alien planet with limited communication and whatever resources they can find.
Vantage is an open-world, cooperative adventure game that features an entire planet to explore. After crashing onto a planet far from your companions, choose how you explore, discover, and interact with the planet. You view your location from a first-person perspective, so while you can communicate with one another, only you can see your current location. The world is your sandbox.
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Chit Chat
Easy, fun, and addictive party games are always a winner in my book. Sometimes you don’t want to sit down for a long, complex board game, but you do want to hang out with your friends and laugh really hard. And Chit Chat is perfect for that.
Get ready to laugh and guess your way through quirky challenges with Chit Chat, the cooperative card game where teamwork and guesswork go hand in hand! In this fun and fast-paced game, players work together to guess numbers that answer funny and unusual questions, then arrange those guesses in ascending order to earn points. But it’s not just about the right answers—hilarious debates and estimating skills come into play as you try to get it just right!
Take Time
Take Time is one of those games that’s easy in theory. The rules are simple enough with organized segments of play, and game mechanics don’t require much more than clear communication and counting. But it’s also a game with a few twists, making it difficult to master. Take Time lists itself as a game for players aged ten and up. And it is completely appropriate for and playable by ten-year-old kids. But even adults may find some of these puzzles challenging to successfully complete.
Take Time is a cooperative game where players either win or lose together. each Test. You can work together through a series of games to pass all 40 Tests available in the game.
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Toy Battle
What if high stakes war themed board games felt a little more like Toy Story? In Toy Battle you move your troops around the board in a miniature version of capture the flag. Only the “troops” look a lot like whatever you could find in your old toy box.
On land, on sea, in clouds, and even in space, battles are breaking out between toys. Your troops need your tactical talent to lead them to victory. Your mission? Be the first to reach the enemy headquarters or control more territories than your opponent. The game ends as soon as you occupy your opponent’s headquarters or win the required number of medals based on the current game board. If a player cannot draw or place a troop, the game ends, and whoever has the most medals wins.
Galactic Cruise
In Galactic Cruise, you’re not taking a cruise; you’re trying to become the boss of the entire cruise company. Only these cruises are in space! Build the most luxurious ships and plan incredible space vacations as you climb to the top of the intergalactic business ladder.
Galactic Cruise is a worker-placement game where you build shuttles, manage resources, and use multi-use cards to run luxury space vacations. As a supervisor competing to become the next CEO, you’ll attract guests, launch cruises, expand the company network, research new tech, and grow your workforce.
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Super Boss Monster
You probably know Boss Monster, and Super Boss Monster levels that game up! You’re not the dungeon diver, but the monster in the a side-scrolling adventure of luring in and defeating hapless adventurers. How the tides have turned! What loot do they have to drop?
After a decade of dungeon-building fun, Boss Monster is leveling up to the next generation with Super Boss Monster! 1-4 players compete to build the ultimate side-scrolling dungeon by drafting room cards, playing spells, and luring in hapless adventurers. Super Boss Monster introduces the Town Board, which brings in new mechanics to the classic card game. Players will need to keep an eye on damage, but luring is key to success; if too many heroes stack up in town, they’ll head to the Tavern and end the game!
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