The best board games of the 2020s 2024

So Clover! is a cooperative word-association game that challenges players to think creatively and work together. The essence of the game is to generate and guess keywords based on shared features, aiming to achieve the highest possible team score.

MicroMacro: Crime City is a unique detective game that immerses players into a detailed and expansive cityscape to solve intriguing crimes. The game centers around a large, detailed map of a city where various crimes have occurred. Players become detectives tasked with unraveling these mysteries using the clues scattered across the city.

The Castles of Burgundy: Special Edition revitalizes Stefan Feld's classic strategy game for 1-4 players, where participants embody aristocrats managing their princedoms. This special edition, a collaboration between Ravensburger and Awaken Realms, elevates the game with a full art redesign, premium materials, and enhanced components, offering a luxurious playing experience as players build their settlements, castles, and engage in trade.

Cascadia is a tile-laying and token-drafting board game that features the rich habitats and diverse wildlife of the Pacific Northwest. It combines strategic tile placement with wildlife conservation themes.

The Crew: Mission Deep Sea is a cooperative trick-taking card game that embarks players on an underwater expedition to discover the lost continent of Mu. Building on the foundations of its predecessor, The Crew, this game combines the familiar mechanics of trick-taking with unique cooperative elements and a compelling thematic narrative.

MicroMacro: Crime City – Full House is a captivating detective game that expands upon the original MicroMacro: Crime City. Players become sleuths, examining a giant city map (75 x 110 cm) filled with intricate details to solve various crimes. This edition includes 16 new cases, each offering a unique story and set of challenges that require players to scrutinize the map to uncover hidden information and trace suspects' movements.

Top Ten is a lively party game that challenges players to creatively rank responses based on humorous or bizarre scenarios. Each player’s task is to align their answer with a secret number they are assigned, ranging from worst (1) to best (10), according to the theme provided by the round's chief. The game combines elements of comedy, strategy, and social deduction as players try to guess and assign the correct rankings to each other's answers.

Heat: Pedal to the Metal is a dynamic and strategic racing board game that simulates the thrill and intricacies of car racing. It offers players a chance to experience the excitement of racing while managing crucial elements like speed, car upgrades, and varying track conditions.

MicroMacro: Crime City – All In is the latest installment in the MicroMacro: Crime City series, offering players a new district of the black-and-white, crime-ridden metropolis known as Crime City to explore. This edition comes with a fresh, large city map that connects seamlessly with the maps from previous games, presenting 16 new and more complex crime cases for players to solve.

Sea Salt & Paper is a set collection card game that combines strategic decision-making with the excitement of timing your moves just right. Similar to Rummy in gameplay, it involves collecting sets of cards to score points, while also navigating the timing of when to end the round for optimal advantage.

Splendor Duel is an intriguing two-player game that builds upon the foundation of its predecessor, Splendor, enhancing it with new layers of strategy and competitiveness. Designed specifically for two players, this standalone game maintains the core elements of Splendor while introducing novel twists and mechanics, making it more dynamic and interactive.

Unmatched: Cobble & Fog is a captivating expansion to the Unmatched system, featuring a quartet of iconic characters drawn from literary lore, each with their unique playstyle and abilities. This expansion introduces the Invisible Man, Sherlock Holmes with Dr. Watson, Dracula along with the sisters, and the duo of Jekyll & Hyde, all brought to life in a highly asymmetrical miniature fighting game.

King of Tokyo: Dark Edition is a limited collector's edition of the popular game King of Tokyo. Set in an alternative, darker version of Tokyo, this edition brings a new level of intensity to the battle for control of the city.

Stella: Dixit Universe offers a fresh and competitive twist to the beloved Dixit game, inviting players to dive into a world where interpretation and intuition meet under the stars. As Starseekers, players will explore thematic imagery on Dixit cards, using a shared clue to guide their choices and strategically score points by aligning their interpretations with those of others.

Project L is a dynamic and visually appealing board game that combines tile-matching with engine-building elements. It's designed to challenge players with its strategic depth, encapsulated within an elegant and simple design. The game features unique triple-layer 3D puzzles and attractive acrylic pieces, making it not only a test of intellect but also a delight to play.

Dorfromantik: The Board Game transitions the charming and strategic essence of the beloved video game into a tactile family board game experience. Designed by Michael Palm and Lukas Zach, this game invites up to six players to collaboratively construct a picturesque landscape using hexagonal tiles. Players aim to satisfy community demands while strategically extending rivers and tracks, and optimizing points through clever area enclosure with flags.

Marvel United: X-Men is an expansion to the cooperative board game Marvel United, focusing on the beloved X-Men universe. This game invites players to embody iconic Marvel heroes, joining forces to thwart the nefarious schemes of a villain who is orchestrating their master plan behind the scenes. With a mix of strategy, collaboration, and superhero flair, this game brings the X-Men's battles and stories to life on the tabletop.

Next Station: London invites players to take on the role of project managers tasked with the ambitious job of redesigning London's iconic underground network. The game challenges players to strategically optimize connections, incorporate as many of the city's landmarks as possible, and efficiently use the tunnels under the Thames, all while adhering to the city's specific requirements.

Star Wars: The Deckbuilding Game brings the epic conflict between the Galactic Empire and the Rebel Alliance to your tabletop. This two-player game captures the essence of the Star Wars universe, offering a dynamic and strategic experience where players build their decks and battle to destroy each other's bases.

Carcassonne: 20th Anniversary Edition celebrates two decades since the beloved tile-placement game Carcassonne won the prestigious Spiel des Jahres award. This special edition not only commemorates the game's lasting appeal but also enhances the classic experience with new and exclusive content. Players continue to draw and place tiles depicting the picturesque landscapes of southern France, aiming to strategically deploy their meeples—be it as knights, robbers, monks, or farmers—to score points by completing cities, roads, cloisters, and fields.