The 10 Best Board Games of Gen Con 2025

It’s a difficult task cramming a 4X space conquest into a small box, but this intriguing card game from Portal Games does just that. Each player controls an interstellar alliance of three unique factions drawn from a pool of 40 distinct options. This creates an asymmetric suite of abilities that informs and influences strategy. Utilizing a selection of multi-use cards, players explore new systems, settle planets, research advanced technologies, and build shiny galactic cruisers.

While quick and sharp, the main focus is on executing tough decisions on how to use cards for either long-term benefits or short-term bursts. The inclusion of a solo mode is also a very nice addition that extends the life of the game.

Solo gaming is not a new concept, but it’s certainly exploded in recent years. Ace of Spades is the latest noteworthy title in this category, allowing a lone player to utilize a hand of cards to battle progressively tougher bosses. On the surface, it looks a lot like the tabletop version of Balatro, but a closer gander reveals an interesting card game brimming with identity.

The wild setting helps as you head to Sweet Haven, Arizona seeking vengeance upon a vile necromancer. This leads to a cemetery where you are confronted by horrific denizens of hell intent on claiming your soul. Best of all, if you get tired of facing these terrors alone, you can call in a partner and play the game in two-player cooperative mode. This works surprisingly well, even if the core engine feels more comfortable as a solo endeavor. This is a heavy-metal charged experience with distorted riffs and a thick tracklist of content.

This is the oddball entry of the list, a party game for a collection of people where one is ruthlessly murdered and the others attempt to solve the crime. The twist here is that the victim tries to form clues from a randomly dealt allotment of cards. These contain symbols and characters of various types, requiring some creative thinking from the murdered participant. You’re given a few minutes to arrange the clue cards how you’d like, using them in conjunction with several suspect cards placed off to the side. The idea is that in the last moments of life, you’ve done what you can to leave a message for those who find you.

After arranging the murder scene, the victim sprawls out on the table capturing their final position at time of death. The ensuing discussion as people try, often in vain, to tease out the meaning of the scene and decipher the clues can be riotous and engaging. Ultimately, the group guesses the murderer and either succeeds or fails.

This is a quirky design that absolutely requires the right set of people. Acquire the wrong crowd or a misaligned mood and it runs the risk of firing blanks. However, with some performative buy-in and a deductive attitude, Dying Message will hit its mark and result in a tabletop game that is wholly unique.

Cozy games are all the rage right now. These are designs that present a relaxed experience which is more focused on meditative play and chill vibes over brutish competition. High Tide is the latest to break out in this category, selling out at Gen Con due to its stellar aesthetic and intriguing play.

This is a small game, easily portable and completely unassuming. But it boasts a surprising amount of depth. Tiles are arranged randomly in a grid and players take turns stacking pieces upon ones that are higher. You may only move your own or neutral tiles, however. It teases out just the right level of strategic thought without tipping over into a cerebral grind. High Tide is a neat, novel work that stood out among the swathe of new games.

Much of the buzz surrounding Lightning Train is the pedigree of designer Paul Dennen. His previous work, Dune Imperium, is a modern classic that has caught on like wildfire in the gaming community. This new release uses a similar concept of bag building as players add various resources to their bag in a strategic bid for developing their company.

The goal is to open train stations and railroad lines across North America, facilitating the delivery of goods to cities in need. The interesting detail is that players can share each other's infrastructure, sending cargo along another participant’s route. Both receive benefits from this cooperation, birthing a more nuanced and fuzzy strategic space. Unlike most games in the train category, Lightning Train is a more approachable design that slots in as a step up from Ticket to Ride.

Pandemic has dozens of spinoff games at this point, and The Lord of the Rings: Fate of the Fellowship appears to be just another iteration on Matt Leacock’s modern classic. That is not the case. This new design does contain some faint indicators of that previous game’s DNA, but it’s so much more than that.

This is a rich adventure game where players cooperate to take the One Ring to Mount Doom while evading the attention of Sauron. It’s part tower defense, with players recruiting Free World troops to battle invading Orcs and Southrons, and it’s part stealth thriller as Frodo must constantly sneak past armies and Nazgul. This is a tense affair, and it’s far more detailed and thematic than expected. In fact, it barely feels like a Pandemic property at all, which may take some people by surprise. Regardless, this is perhaps the most exciting game I played at Gen Con this year, and I’m enraptured by it.

Evolution, the board game that captures the pressures of a dynamic ecosystem and how this influences species, has been wildly successful over the past 10 years of its life. It’s spawned numerous expansions and spinoffs, and may have just found its final state with Nature. This latest version of the system is pared down to a straightforward and approachable core game that retains the interesting card play of its predecessor.

Some of the elements have been simplified, and it’s easier than ever to introduce this game to beginners and non-hobbyist of any age. The magic resides in the game’s module system. Multiple add-ons exist that can be inserted to layer on sub-systems for flight, dinosaurs, and environments. This slightly increases the complexity, while boosting the strategic potential. A huge boon is that it changes up the feel of each session, and allows North Star Games to expand this properly infinitely. Nature is poised to have the longest legs of any game in the Evolution line.

Battle of Hoth was the most talked about game heading into Gen Con. This was for good reason, as it puts a Star Wars board game spin on the popular Memoir 44 series of games. Players take on the role of either the contingent of Imperial AT-ATs and snowtroopers, or the Rebel soldiers holding the line in order to protect the planet’s shield generator. Each takes turns playing cards from their hand to activate one portion of the battlefield, choosing from a selection of units occupying that flank. This restriction of the card system is a hallmark of the Memoir series, forcing tough decisions with only a modicum of rules overhead.

While this is a wargame of sorts, it’s also a very streamlined and rules-light design. It’s a dramatic game, full of dice rolling and big moments where units are scattered and lines are broken. The Star Wars backdrop only helps.

During the 1986 Spooktacular horror film festival, a freak accident occurs involving a lightning strike and a little bit of mystery. This results in dozens of monsters spanning the length of cinematic history being released from their fictional bonds. Now they are free to terrorize the festival goers and wreak havoc.

This dynamite concept is realized through a highly asymmetric yet still smartly restrained system. Players take on the roles of movie monsters animated from the screen, competing to scare and devour guests. Each of the 20 included monsters is unique, featuring its own suite of abilities and cards. Yet, this is not an overstuffed game and the core processes are direct and sensible. The concoction here is magnificent, and this monster mash is full of delight and terror.

In my review of Vantage, I declared it as possibly being the top game of 2025. It seems the crowds of Gen Con agreed, as this game was everywhere. This is a fully cooperative adventure where players crash land on an uncharted planet and must navigate its many mysteries in order to fulfill a collective mission. While this was clearly designed in the tradition of modern narrative adventure games, it goes about things its own way, massively improving on the pre-existing approach.

For one, it’s not a campaign game. Each individual session has a complete arc, which makes it far more approachable for most groups. It also does away with narrow objectives requiring players head to specific locations. Instead, many of the missions may be fulfilled in numerous ways. This highlights the game’s focus on creativity and freedom, allowing you to wander and explore whatever catches your eye. Finally, the mysteries of the world are special and worthy of the effort required. This is a fantastic game, and it was the closest thing to a singular standout title of the convention.

Charlie Theel is a tabletop games freelancer. You can follow him on Twitter @CharlieTheel.