10 Of The Best Board Games For Video Gamers

Editors Note: The post is sponsored by Brotherwise Games. Please check out Brotherwise Games for amazing tabletop board games to play, whether you are casual or hardcore. Make sure to occasionally digitally unplug and drink some water!

Video games continue to become more mainstream as the pool of available games expands. These days, there’s a game for practically anyone, from casual side scrollers to hardcore shooters like Apex Legends.

What makes video games so special is their ability to teleport you to a new world and experience things that you wouldn’t normally have access to in real life. Graphics are visually appealing and there are games that deliver hundreds of hours worth of entertainment!

Board games, on the other hand, remain a relatively niche topic in the gaming world. Most people are familiar with the classic family games such as Monopoly and Risk (and card games such as Pokemon and Yu-Gi-Oh!) but board games aren’t nearly as popular as their video game counterparts. However, if you do make your way to one of the major nerd conventions, you will most definitely see tons of board gamers having a great time!

Luckily, there are plenty of board games available that will appeal to the video game crowd! Here are our recommendations for the best board games to try out if you are a fan of video games:

#1 Boss Monster

Concept: It’s rare that we find a game where you play the villain, but that’s exactly what Boss Monster offers. Players take the role of a boss and make things as challenging as possible for the heroes coming to defeat you!

Boss Monster has heavy influences from the classic 8-bit adventure games of old. You’ll notice this in the game’s artwork, commentary, and game mechanics.

The premise is to kill heroes faster than the other bosses in the game. Players have access to a deck of cards with traps, treasures, and map tiles to send the heroes to their doom.

Why We Like It: It goes against the grain of the typical game protagonist and lets players be on the dark side for a change.

Good For: Gamers who grew up with a classic NES and feel like putting the hurt on some good guys.

#2 Gloomhaven

Concept: You assemble a team of warriors to explore a vast fantasy world and battle a variety of monsters. Gloomhaven is a full-on RPG in a board game box, which is immediately noticeable given the 20+ pound box. It’s one of the more expensive board games on the list, but you definitely get what you pay for. 

The game features 95 unique missions to conquer, each with specific monsters and objectives. To get through everything, you’ll need at least 100 hours of playtime and a large surface to lay out all the pieces.

Gloomhaven has a large instruction manual, but there are several tutorials online that can help you get acquainted with the base rules within about half an hour. It’s a commitment that is best played with a roommate or nearby friend to maximize your party’s potential to complete missions.

Why We Like It: There’s something so satisfying about defeating a devastating boss, leveling up your character, and progressing through the deep storyline.

Good For: Gamers who have played multiplayer RPGs like Diablo

#3 Overboss — Brotherwise Games

Concept: Overboss builds on the premise of Boss Monster and tasks players with creating the deadliest map possible. From the moment you open the box and see the hundreds of tokens and tiles, you’ll be in awe of the glorious pixel art (very reminiscent of The Legend of Zelda: A Link to The Past on SNES). Once you start playing, you’ll quickly find it is more challenging than expected to create a solid game map.

There is so much variety in the types of map tiles, creating a high level of replayability to Overboss. Strategy is key as players figure out the right combination of terrain and monsters.

Brotherwise Games has done a great job of making spatial puzzle design accessible to the masses. Once you’ve learned the basics, you can try your hand at tougher gameplay options to up the difficulty!

Why We Like It: It’s a unique take on level builders but in board game form.

Good For: Gamers who enjoyed Mario Maker 2, or any game that lets you customize levels

#4 Zombicide

Concept: Following similar RPG mechanics as some of the other board games on the list, Zombicide pits players against a devastating array of zombies. You use your survivor abilities to take out hordes of the undead!

Zombicide features a deck of cards that alters the way each scenario plays out. You get to piece modular tiles together to form haunting maps, which eventually get overrun by your enemies.

As you progress, the danger level continually increases, making for more crowded encounters and harder enemies. You pick up loot, level up, and hopefully avoid getting torn to shreds.

Why We Like It: The zombie apocalypse has been a part of pop culture for decades. Zombicide really hits the nail on the head for what this experience should be in a board game.

Good For: Gamers who enjoyed The Last of Us series or The Walking Dead TV show.

#5 A Game of Thrones: The Board Game

Concept: This is another board game with a giant instruction manual that requires hours to learn, but it is absolutely worth it. As the name suggests, players take the role of one of the Great Houses and strategize their way to the Iron Throne.

The GoT board game requires precise planning and the ability to prepare several turns into the future. It rewards players for paying close attention to their enemies and making the right play at the right time.

To top it off, the creators did a great job of making it feel as though you are actually fighting for Westeros yourself. There’s betrayal, combat, and politics.

Why We Like It: There isn’t just one way to win, which means the game tends to be a close race up until the very end.

Good For: Gamers who like Game of Thrones, Risk, and complexity.

#6 King of Tokyo

Concept: King of Tokyo has been one of our favorite games for years now! Godzilla and King Kong movies are seemingly being rebooted every several years. In this dice-rolling game, you pick from monsters resembling the two behemoths and a few other terrifying creatures and jostle for control of Tokyo. 

Controlling Tokyo will net you victory points but also make you a target to the rest of the 1 to 5 players. On each turn, you heal, attack, and/or use special abilities from a deck of playable cards. 

King of Tokyo was designed by Richard Garfield, the famous game designer who brought us the iconic deck-building game Magic: The Gathering! It is incredibly easy to learn with a killer theme. 

Why We Like It: It’s a great theme for Sci-Fi, King Kong, and Godzilla enthusiasts.

Good For: Gamers who enjoy dice rolling and decision-making games.

#7 Small World

Concept: Small World features practically every fantasy species. From giants and dwarves to elves and wizards, players combine races with a myriad of different special powers and vie for control of the map!

On each turn, players have the option to expand their territorial hold while utilizing each race’s special abilities. As if World of Warcraft and the popular board game Risk had a baby, dice-rolling dictates the options of your race and special powers. 

You earn coins for territories occupied at the end of each turn. The player with the most coins at the end of the last round will be declared the victor. Be careful not to expand your empire too quickly and manage when to switch to a new active race and you’ll be on your way to conquering your friends! 

Why We Like It: There’s a ton of replayability as you experiment with character and power combinations!

Good For: Gamers who love RTS games and RPGs with tons of classes.

#8 7 Wonders

Concept: 7 Wonders is a fantastic card development game where you need to balance military strength with the need to construct your respective wonder. The resource management aspect of the game is combined with a unique system where players take turns passing a deck of cards around.

You need to simultaneously grab cards that are beneficial for your build while denying your opponents’ cards that they may need. Each card has unique effects, some of which are delayed for later rounds.

7 Wonders is fairly straightforward to pick up but takes a good bit of practice to understand winning strategies. 

Why We Like It: There are a good bit of mind games when it comes to card selection, and you can completely throw off your opponents’ strategy with one move.

Good For: Fans of city-building games like the Civilization series.

#9 Pandemic

Concept: This board game launched well before the global pandemic and is one of the best cooperative games out there. In it, players choose a role with unique abilities to help combat the spread of infectious diseases across the globe.

As a team, you work together to build research centers, clear infections from major cities, and cure all four viruses. While there’s a good amount of strategy involved, Pandemic has an RNG element in the deck of cards that determines which cities get infected.

Once you get comfortable with the rules, you easily up the difficulty of the mission by modifying the game deck. If you get really into the game, you should take a look at the more complex Pandemic: Legacy board game!

Why We Like It: Who doesn’t enjoy a plotline where the heroes need to save the world?

Good For: Gamers who like planning and working in a group.

#10 Dark Souls: The Board Game

Concept: With the current popularity of Eldin Ring on Tik Tok it only made sense to have a Souls game on this list. The last entrant on our list brings the Dark Souls franchise to life in stunning detail! The board game version captures all the magic of the video game, maintaining the high level of difficulty we’ve come to expect from these games.

Players have their choice of one of four characters, each having their own abilities. As you crawl through the many dungeons, you encounter a multitude of enemies that you’ll recognize from the video game.

There’s a leveling mechanic to increase your character’s overall power and plenty of treasures to be looted along the way. It’s not uncommon to lose a given scenario, and, as the website states, you should “prepare to die”!

Why We Like It: Beautiful miniatures plus painful difficulty are the perfect mix

Good For: Fans of the Dark Souls video game series!

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