These are the 2022 ✤board games t🐷hat need to be on your shelf
(Image credit: Future)
It's an understatement to say that board games have had a good run in 2022; this year is creaking under the weight of new favorites and revamped classics, many of which are in line to rub shoulders with the 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:best board games overall. Because it was too🐼 easy to miss many of these amongst the deluge, we've rounded up some personal standouts from the past 12 months. If they aren't on your radar, they really should be.
More specifically, our Tabletop & Merch ✤Editor ꦿBenjamin and all-round board games expert Matt Thrower have picked out their ultimate 2022 hits below. These tabletop newcomers brightened our year, so we wanted to give them a shout-out.
We've also got the site's bargain-hunting software tracking down the lowest prices for each entry, so if you wanted to pick up any of the follow🐈ing recommendations for yourself, you should be able to snag a better deal.
(Image credit: Osprey Games)
Undaunted: Stalingrad
The ultimate armchair General’s game
☆☆☆☆☆
Specifications
Players: 2
Lasts: 45 - 60 mins
Reasons to buy
+
Superb evocation of World War 2 combat from simple rules
+
Rewards both short term tactics and long term planning over multiple games
Reasons to avoid
-
It’s a campaign game, so requires extended replay
Undaunted: Stalingrad is the apex so far for the brilliant Undaunted series, feted for bringing alive the battlefields of the Second World War with both accessibility and accuracy. But instead of using miniatures to represent your soldiers, it’s a deck-building game in which your NCO cards add new troops to your deck, simulating reinforcements and morale boosts. Meanwhile, those troop cards - the bulk of your deck - are played to move and shoot with units on the tile-based board. When they come under fire, you’re forced to discard the matching cards so they’re drawn less often, reflecting casualties and degrading morale. It's a clever yet eleg🌺ant system.
While the original game was full of tactics and excitement, it had a tendency to bog down into static firefights. The scenar💟io design here is hugely improved, running from sniper alleys through last-ditch defences to mammoth tank battles. What really makes it stand out, however, is the campaign system. It’s a branching, narrative affair that won’t play out the same twice a🌃nd sees both sides upgrading and downgrading troops as well as changing the actual city map, as buildings are fortified or bombed to rubble.
The best thing about long term play, though, is how the game becomes about choosing your battles. When your staring deck has been reduc꧅ed to a bundle of raw recruits and walking wounded, how hard do you want to push for the objectives of an individual battle? How much are you willing to risk your single, remaining unit of elite veterans? These are the sorts of questions pondered by real life commanders that very few wargames ever reach, let alone one so fast-playing and accessible.
Matt
Sign up to the GamesRadar+ Newsletter
Weekly digests, tales from the comm🌃unities y♈ou love, and more
(Image credit: Funko / Amblin)
Jurassic World: The Legacy of Isla Nublar
An enthralling new spin on the Legacy formula
☆☆☆☆☆
Specifications
Players: 2 - 4
Lasts: 90 mins
Reasons to buy
+
Clever, replayable Legacy mechanics with added mini-games
+
Superb attention to detail
Reasons to avoid
-
A bit of a commitment
The unexpected - and often ridiculous - stories you end up making while playing board games are part of why this hobby has such a stranglehold on my heart. A goo🅷d example was when Jurassic Park founder John Hammond was forced to single-handedly take on a T-rex with a cattleprod in The Legacy of Isಞla Nublar. It's brilliantly daft, and just one of the memorable moments kicked out by this ambitious project from the superstars at Prospero Hall.
Sure, it leans on ideas we've seen from Legacy games before with hidden mechanics, permanent character upgrades, and consequences that follow you from session to session. But it throws fun mini-challenges into the🔯 mix that spice up core gameplay, and you're actually creating your own unique board/game-state that you can play over and over again once the core campaign is done. Unlike rivals, you're enouraged to keep coming back.
When paired with the studio's usual attention t🙈o detail, this is every bit the grand adventure it promises to be.♔ Plus, it lets you create new dinosaurs. What's not to love?
Benjamin
(Image credit: Cardboard Alchemy)
Flamecraft
Cute dragons and conglomerating gameplay create a winning combination for all ages
Reasons to buy
+
Starts simple but snowballs into some really interesting places
+
Cutesy dragon theme with great art and wide appeal
Reasons to avoid
-
Can get repetitive over repeat plays
At the start of Flamecraft there are essentially only two rules you have to learn. On your turn, you move your dragon meeple to a shop and either place a dragon and collect the resources available there or you spend those resources to enchant the shop and get some points. In both cases, however, the shop will offer more resources, and 🐲a choice of additional effects, to future visitors. Once shops start filling up with dragons, new shops come into play which offer special abilities to visitors on top of the usual choices.
In this way, what starts out as a very simple and accessible game slowly builds into something with a surprising amoun🐓t of strategic nuance. Early on it’s all about making sure you have dragons in your hand to place, and racing to place the enchantments you want before other players snaffle them up. By the end game, though, you’ll be balancing that with extra points from fancy dragon goals, shop special effects, and card combos.
Sure, the🎃 relatively thin mechanics can bring a sense of repetition despite the apparent variety. But it helps that the game is just so appealing to look at. The over-long neoprene board unrolls into a medieval shopping street, which is lined with butchers, bakers, and potion-makers. The art on the shops and the cards representing their dragon helpers is delightful. Yet despite the cute theme, there’s some decent interaction going on too as you try to block shops your opponents are using and decide how to divvy up resource gifts for points. It really is a game with the potential to appeal to almost anyone.
Matt
(Image credit: Hasbro / Avalon Hill)
Betrayal at House on the Hill 3rd edition
A fantastic update to a classic
Reasons to buy
+
Smart gameplay updates
+
Gorgeous new artwork
Reasons to avoid
-
Still some balance issues
Although we were a 'board game' family from the start, 2010's 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Betrayal at♍ House on the Hill 2nd edition was my introduction to the wider world of 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:board games for adults. And sure, it wasn't perfect. Its scenarios weren't always well-balanced, for example. But the overall experience didn't suffer for it, mostly bec✃ause the horror-tinged gameplay dragged you in by the scruff of your neck.
With that in mind, I was curious (and a little wary) about what this new 2022 version could add to the formula. I needn't have worried. Betrayal's 3rd edition is head and shoulders above its predecessor tha🦂nks to streamlined rules that get rid of old frustrations, not to mention beautiful artwo♌rk that makes the previous design look drab by comparison.
Sure, there are still some balance issues lurking amongst the 50 new missions. Yet this doesn't detract from what is a smart, well🦩-considered revamp to a classic. So far as I'm concerned, it's the d🐼efinitive version of Betrayal at House on the Hill and deserves a place on your shelf.
Further down the rabbit hole than you maybe wanted to go
☆☆☆☆☆
Specifications
Players: 2 - 5
Lasts: 45 mins
Reasons to buy
+
Fun integration of strategic bag-building and exciting bag-pulling
+
Mechanics and visuals really bring the world of Wonderland to life
Reasons to avoid
-
Random elements can be frustrating given long setup and play time
There have been previous attempts to capture the whimsy of Lewis Carroll’s Alice books in a board game, but it’s fittingly peculiar that what’s essentially a conquest game should come the closest. Players circle the table at the Mad Hatter&rsq🥂uo;s tea party, tapping the guests to upgrade your character, recruit weird Wonderland personalities, and adding chips to your draw bag. Then, in the next phase, you fight your opponents in the various regions of Wonderland by pulling chips from your bag, hoping to avoid the dreaded madness chips.
This strange mish-mash of mechanics actually works well to bring home the oddness of the setting, alongside cartoon cut-out pieces of the most famous characters from the books. But the biggest surprise is how strategic the whole thing is, with decisions in each of the two phases calling back to one another. Drawin☂g from your bag during battles can feel very random but is also exciting, and it rewards players who’ve built sensibly, ensuring there’s plenty of method amidst the madness.
So far as I was concerned, this update to 2018's 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Disney Villainous had a lot 💎to prove. The original remains one of my favorite board games thanks to its unique character tactiওcs that interact with each other in challenging ways, but I hadn't been quite as enamored with its Marvel-themed follow-up. Could this detour to a galaxy far, far away do any better?
In a word, yes. Actually, Star Wars Villainous might even improve on the formula. The addition of vehicles via the Deep Space slot, along with Ambition as an extra resource, provide welcome depth to proceedings and genuinely enhance the game's flow. It's not quite as beginner-friendly as a result, but it's an update that gives ꦕthe series renewed vigor so far as fans are concerned.
Stunning artwork and gorgeous charact൩er tokens seal the deal on what quickly became one of my favorite games of 2022.
A great addition to the under-served hidden movement genre
+
Different sniper loadouts and solider types offer plenty of variety and replay value
Reasons to avoid
-
Doesn’t feel much like the video game
You&rsqไuo;re probably at least passingly famili൩ar with the Sniper Elite video game series and its reputation for stealth gameplay and gratuitous gore. Now you can enjoy one of those two things on your tabletop in this asymmetric hidden-movement game.
One player takes the sniper, chooses his weapons and🥃 equip🌜ment, and creeps secretly through the base to complete randomly-drawn objectives. The other players each run a squad of German soldiers and an officer, each with a speciality like a medic, who have to block and hunt down the sniper.
What makes the whole thing work are the tight, labyrinthine boards and oppressive time limit which drive the sniper to take risks that might reveal their location. It’s a thrilling game of cat and mouse, enlivened by the various special abilities both sides♚ have, during which the sniper will be found and have to try and melt back into the shadows several times. Meanwhile, sniping is governed by a fun bag-pull mechanic that risks making more nois🙈e or missing the longer the range.
And♐ yes, in the cramped corridors of this tabletop version, the long-range shots that were so satisfying in the video game are rare. This is more like a sniper rifle fight in a phone booth... but iꦆt works superbly well.
Matt
(Image credit: North Star Games)
Paint the Roses
A clever but family-friendly addition that'll make you feel like a genius
☆☆☆☆☆
Specifications
Players: 2 - 5
Lasts: 60 mins
Reasons to buy
+
Thoughtful process-of-elimination mechanics
+
Incredibly satisfying, yet tense
Reasons to avoid
-
Requires a lot of brainpower
OK, so technically this game was on Kickstarter last year. But seeing as it only just landed at retail in 2022, I'm going to throw the Wonderland-inspired🧸 adventure into the ring along with this year's best.
That's because it's a truly superb co-op experience that takes the gameplay of ♕an old favorite like Hanabi and wraps it up in a fresh challenge. Namely, your aim is to fill the Queen of Heart's garden with different roses while staying one step ahead of her - but you've got to correctly guess the color and pattern each player has in their hand to move forward. Because you can't communicate about whatဣ you've got other than by placing rose tiles on the board and putting down a colored cube to signify matches, it's both thoughtful and deeply strategic.
Seeing as there are so many potential combinations (with the whole process becoming harder as you fill the board), you've also got to be ver𝕴y careful about what you put down. And if the Queen catches you before then… well, it's off with your head.
What follows is comfortably one of the best 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:cooperative board games I've played recently. The🌠 process-of-elimination mechanics are a satisfying mental workout, and everyone is always involvꦡed regardless of whether it's their turn or not.
Benjamin
(Image credit: Future)
Splendor Duel
A superb game for 2 players
☆☆☆☆☆
Specifications
Players:
Lasts:
Reasons to buy
+
Rich and interactive engine-building at a minimum of rules
+
Colorful art and thick, satisfying poker chips
Reasons to avoid
-
Mechanically over-familiar to veterans of the original
You might have played or heard ofꦗ Splendor, ostensibly a great-looking gem-crafting game from 2014 🌼that was really an engine-building abstract stripped back to its bare essentials. Players collected gem tokens to spend on gem cards that then counted as permanent tokens going forward. Splendor Duel has the same basic structure but adds some spatial strategy in picking gems from a board, special rewards on some gem cards, and a variety of victory conditions.
It’s incredible how these small tweaks add so much excitement and strategy to the game. And because it’s two-player, the design even works in direct interaction, from vying with your opponent to be the one to refill the board and grant your enemy a bonus, to directly stealing gems from their supply with a special card effect. Grizzled veterans of the original might not find it fresh enough mechanically, but it feels like a very d𝔍iffe🅷rent, and much more engaging, game.
Rulebook split into standard and advanced gameplay
Reasons to avoid
-
No storage within the box for all your tokens and cards
Warhammer Underworlds takes every𒉰thing that's great about Games Work♍shop and distills it down into a whip-crack fast yet strategic experience that'll leave you wanting more. In video game terms, it's like Overwatch compared to Battlefield; a more condensed warzone with oodles of personality.
As a♌ newcomer to Underworlds, I found Gnarlwood to be the perfect introduction. Thanks to an intriguing world and stunning miniatures with unique mechanics to back them up, it has a distinct flavor unlike anything else the company's offering right now. Your ability to mix aꦜnd match warbands - not to mention boards and ability cards - keeps it fresh, too. I can't wait to play more, and that's probably the best compliment I can give in a year full of amazing games.
Fast-playing miniatures game which rewards creating, tactical maneuvering
+
Fun narrative campaign system that links the stories of individual battles
Reasons to avoid
-
Needs a lot of time and a set of modeling tools to put together
Games Workshop is best known for its epic miniatures games, with dozens of models marching across the tabletop. But that’s a hobby you have🐼 to devote your life to, whereas skirmish game Warcry with it’s ten-odd warrior warbands is something you can slip in and out of while still experiencing the joys of painting, modelling, and filling your house with glue fumes. Happily, it’s also an 🍬excellent system in it’s own right.
In addition to the dice-heavy coꦛmbat we all know and love, Warcry has a smart dice pool system where you collect double, triple and quad results and spend them on epic special abilities for your fighters. It also makes heavy use of scenery to enrich on-board maneuvers and tactics, with models climbing onto platforms and over rope bridges 🗹to gain vantage points. Heart of Ghur is the core box in the new second edition of the game which adds reactions you can take during an opponent’s turn, making things even more dynamic.
And because games only take an hour or so, it&rsquo▨;s also great for running short campaigns with a full, detailed set of rules for doing just that in the box. The focus on individual models make individual battles rich with narrative detail as well.
Just be aware that if you’re wholly new to the Games Workshop world, the ❀supplied figures and scenery will require a full set of tools and considerable time and care to assemble before you can actually get ✅them out and play.
Matt
(Image credit: Repos Productions)
7 Wonders Architects
A simplified update that still has its claws in me
☆☆☆☆☆
Specifications
Players: 2 - 7
Lasts: 25 mins
Reasons to buy
+
Straightforward but satisfying gameplay
+
Easy to get into, yet moreish
Reasons to avoid
-
Lacks tactical depth
While the original 7 Wonders is often seen as one of the top 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:board games for families, it can be an intimidat🥂ing prospect thanks to all of the strategic possibilit🎶ies you've got to juggle. The streamlined Architects knocks down those barriers to entry for a much more accessible experience.
Alright, I'll admit that it's not the most complex or tactical entry in the series. It doওesn't have as much longevity as a result. But there's something very moreish about its quick-fire rounds, and it's so much easier to get into than its predecessors. Sometimes you want to turn off your brain with something straightforward and satisfying rather than a complex strategic experience, and this version of 7 Wonders fits the bill beautifully.
It's not just elegant in terms of meౠchanics, either. The design is also a winner. Along with an endearing cartoon style, Architects features sturdy plastic cases for each faction that offers better, more functional storage between sessions (I swear, the worst part of tabletop gaming is organizing all the cards that have become jumbled up in the box). Other publishers, take note - this is how it's do💯ne.
Benjamin
(Image credit: Perplext)
Long Shot: The Dice Game
Puzzle out the winning horses in a fast, thrilling gambling game
Reasons to buy
+
Great synthesis of excitement and strategy in a short, cheap game
+
Unusual clashing reward structure as different players back the same horses
Reasons to avoid
-
Gambling theme means inevitable randomness, and some may find it objectionable
Gambling games have to strike an awkward balance between randomness and strategy, while the growing genre of roll and write games need more variety and player interaction. Who would have guessed 🌠that thℱe solution to both these problems was to combine the two? The proof is in the excellent Long Shot: The Dice Game, so long as you don’t mind the obvious betting connotations.
A dice roll determines which horses move in the race each round, but in a clever twist, the moving 🌳horse also moves a number of other horses one space. At the game start the horses with better odds are more likely to move this way, yet as the game goes on, players can increase the chances of other horses too. In addition to bets, they can also buy horses for special abilities and a hefty bonus if it places among the winners, completing a betting grid for cool bonuses and sponsor jockeys.
The result is a fascinating interplay of comb💙ined rewards. Everyone wants to back the winning horses, but if you boost their progress too much, some of your opponents may benefit more than you. Unpicking this to work out which are the best to back for you, or even working to bring a back marker into contention, never gets old, especially with the ever-present threat of the dice torpedoing your best-laid plans.
I've been writing about games in one form or another since 2012ജ, and now manage GamesRadar+'s tabletop gaming and toy coverage. You'll find m𝄹y grubby paws on everything from board game reviews to the latest Lego news.
