AI Deutscher Spielepreis 2026: Sanctuary Wins – the Top 10
· boardgame.tips Editorial Team
The Deutscher Spielepreis 2026 (Germany's big public-vote game award) goes to Sanctuary (German title: Artengarten) by Mathias Wigge (Feuerland Spiele). Second place goes to Boss Fighters QR (Pegasus Spiele), third to Galactic Cruise (German edition from PD-Verlag). The children's game prize goes to Toriki from Mirakulus. Merz Verlag announced the results on October 21, 2026, at the press conference for SPIEL in Essen (Brettspiel-News, October 21, 2026). The winner is less interesting than the gap to the jury: neither the Spiel des Jahres nor the Kinderspiel des Jahres finished on top.
Key takeaways
- Winner: Sanctuary by Mathias Wigge. It's his second win of the public award, after Ark Nova in 2022.
- Podium: Boss Fighters QR in second place, Galactic Cruise in third.
- Children's game prize: Toriki by Wojciech Grajkowski (Mirakulus). The other nominees were Mooki Island and Paleolino.
- Gap to the jury: JinxO, the Spiel des Jahres 2026, is missing from the top 10. Kennerspiel winner Rebirth finishes sixth.
- Common ground with the Netherlands: Take Time (5th) and River of Gold (8th) won categories there.
How the vote works
The Deutscher Spielepreis is a public award, not a jury prize. Each voter names five favorite games and one children's game. First place on the ballot earns five points, fifth place one point, and the children's game one point. Eligible are games released in German between May 1 and April 30 of the following year. The award has existed since 1990 (Brettspiel-News, October 21, 2026). The organizer did not say how many people voted (Reich der Spiele, October 21, 2026).
The top three were known in advance, just not in order (Reich der Spiele, October 21, 2026). Feuerland announced before the fair that Sanctuary was among the top three (Feuerland Spiele, retrieved October 23, 2026). Merz Verlag had already published places 4 through 10, sorted by points (Brettspiel-News, October 21, 2026).
The top 10 of the Deutscher Spielepreis 2026
Both reports agree on the rankings (Brettspiel-News, Reich der Spiele, both October 21, 2026). The right-hand column shows how the Spiel des Jahres jury rated the same titles in 2026 (Spiel des Jahres, retrieved October 26, 2026).
| Place | Game | Designer | Publisher | Spiel des Jahres 2026 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Sanctuary | Mathias Wigge | Feuerland | Kennerspiel recommendation list |
| 2 | Boss Fighters QR | Michael Palm, Lukas Zach | Pegasus Spiele | Kennerspiel nominee |
| 3 | Galactic Cruise | T. K. King and co-designers | PD-Verlag | – |
| 4 | The Lord of the Rings: Fate of the Fellowship | Matt Leacock | Z-Man Games | – |
| 5 | Take Time | Alexi Piovesan, Julien Prothière | Libellud | Spiel des Jahres recommendation list |
| 6 | Rebirth | Reiner Knizia | Frosted Games | Kennerspiel des Jahres |
| 7 | Cozy Stickerville | Corey Konieczka | Unexpected Games | Spiel des Jahres nominee |
| 8 | River of Gold | Keith Piggott | Kosmos | – |
| 9 | Star Trek: Captain's Chair | Nigel Buckle, Dávid Turczi | Frosted Games | – |
| 10 | Forest Shuffle: Dartmoor | Kosch | Lookout Games | – |
If you want to compare earlier years, our list of the best Deutscher Spielepreis games has every winner since 1990, and last year's results are under Deutscher Spielepreis 2025.
The winner: Sanctuary
Sanctuary is the little sibling of Ark Nova, the game that won Mathias Wigge the Deutscher Spielepreis in 2022, also from Feuerland (Brettspiel-News, October 21, 2026). For 1 to 5 players, you build a modern conservation zoo, laying tiles instead of cards and working with a lighter rulebook: our game pages list Sanctuary at a complexity of 2.8 on the five-point scale and Ark Nova at 3.8. At 40 to 100 minutes and ages 12 and up, it's still a classic Kennerspiel (connoisseur game).
Since Ark Nova in 2022, the winners have been Planet Unknown (2023), Forest Shuffle (2024) and SETI (2025) (Brettspiel-News, October 21, 2026). With Forest Shuffle: Dartmoor in tenth place, a spin-off of the 2024 winner makes the list again.
Second and third place: boss fights and space cruises
The podium holds two very different games. Boss Fighters QR by Michael Palm and Lukas Zach was already nominated for the Kennerspiel des Jahres over the summer (Spiel des Jahres, retrieved October 26, 2026). Galactic Cruise originally comes from Kinson Key Games; the German edition is published by PD-Verlag (Brettspiel-News, October 21, 2026). It didn't appear on any Spiel des Jahres list.
What the list says about this year's crop
The public and the jury are far apart
The most striking finding is a gap. JinxO (German: Dito!), the Spiel des Jahres 2026, doesn't appear in the top 10 at all. Rebirth, the Kennerspiel des Jahres, comes in sixth (Spiel des Jahres, July 12, 2026). The public award, meanwhile, goes to a game the jury had only put on its Kennerspiel recommendation list.
That isn't a contradiction; it follows from the procedures. The Spiel des Jahres jury awards three separate categories, while the Deutscher Spielepreis counts votes in a single combined list. People naming their five favorite games apparently lean toward the big game for an evening at the table rather than a light word game like JinxO. Only two of the ten places go to titles from the main Spiel des Jahres category: Take Time and Cozy Stickerville.
Heavier than the Spiel des Jahres
The complexity our game pages show, based on the BGG weight rating (scale 1 to 5), ranges among the top 10 from 1.2 for Cozy Stickerville to 4.0 for Star Trek: Captain's Chair. Nine of the ten titles have a rating. JinxO, the Spiel des Jahres, sits at 1.1, below even the lightest game on the list. Galactic Cruise (4.0) and Star Trek: Captain's Chair are true expert games, and The Lord of the Rings: Fate of the Fellowship comes in at 3.1. In the middle are Sanctuary (2.8), River of Gold (2.5) and Boss Fighters QR (2.1); lighter are Rebirth (2.0) and Take Time (1.8). So the vote reflects what dedicated hobby gamers play more than what sits on the family shelf.
Asmodee everywhere, Frosted Games twice
Asmodee is well represented. According to Brettspiel-News, four of the ten titles belong to Asmodee labels: Z-Man, Libellud, Unexpected Games and Lookout (Brettspiel-News, October 21, 2026). At the same time, Frosted Games appears twice, with Rebirth and Star Trek: Captain's Chair.
The Netherlands sees it similarly
At the Nederlandse Spellenprijs 2026, Take Time won the family category, ahead of Castle Combo and Rebirth. The expert-game prize went to River of Gold, the Dutch edition of the game sold in Germany as Am Goldenen Fluss (BoardGameWire, October 12, 2026). Both titles also made the German top 10. Careful with the third category: the Dutch connoisseur-game winner is the trick-taker The Lord of the Rings: Trick-Taking Game, not the Pandemic spin-off in fourth place. Every year of the Dutch award is in our list of Nederlandse Spellenprijs winners.
Children's game prize: Toriki instead of Mooki Island
The public also went its own way on children's games. The children's game prize goes to Toriki: The Castaway Island by Wojciech Grajkowski (Mirakulus), a cooperative app-driven adventure for 1 to 4 players aged 8 and up. The other nominees were Mooki Island and Paleolino (Brettspiel-News, Reich der Spiele, both October 21, 2026). Of all games, it's Mooki Island that is the Kinderspiel des Jahres 2026. Toriki, by contrast, was on the Spiel des Jahres recommendation list for the main category, not the children's games (Spiel des Jahres, retrieved October 26, 2026).
Bottom line: the public vs. the jury
The Deutscher Spielepreis 2026 confirms Mathias Wigge as a crowd favorite: with Sanctuary he wins for the second time after Ark Nova. What stands out is how little the public and the jury overlap this year: the Spiel des Jahres is missing from the top 10, the Kennerspiel des Jahres lands in sixth, and the children's prize goes to a different title too. If you're looking for a game for your own group of regular gamers, this list is the better compass. If you're looking for a family game, the Spiel des Jahres 2026 winners are the better bet. For everything else that happened at the fair, see our post on SPIEL Essen 2026.
Frequently asked questions
Who won the Deutscher Spielepreis 2026?
Sanctuary (Artengarten) by Mathias Wigge (Feuerland Spiele). Boss Fighters QR from Pegasus Spiele came second, and Galactic Cruise, in the German edition from PD-Verlag, came third.
Who won the 2026 children's game prize?
Toriki: The Castaway Island by Wojciech Grajkowski, published by Mirakulus. The other nominees were Mooki Island and Paleolino.
When was the Deutscher Spielepreis 2026 announced?
On October 21, 2026, at the press conference for SPIEL in Essen. The fair itself ran from October 22 to 25.
How is the Deutscher Spielepreis awarded?
By public vote. Each voter names their five favorite games, weighted from five points for first place down to one point for fifth, plus one children's game. Eligible are games released in German from May through April of the following year.
Is Sanctuary the same as Ark Nova?
No. Sanctuary is a standalone, lighter game by the same designer with a related zoo theme. You lay tiles instead of cards, and the rules are leaner.