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Best board games 2027: top picks for adults and families
Sam – an ex-science teacher – uses his physics degree and over five years experience getting hands-on with products at Which? to test everything from beard trimmers and trampolines to IPL hair removal and electric fans
The best board games pull you away from the alluring glow of your smart devices and bring you together to create fun, lasting memories.
To help you find the best board game to buy this year, we enlisted a small army of novices and avid board game experts, who collectively own more than 300 games. We also asked Which? members to recommend their favourite games to us.
We rounded up the most popular games, from Azul, Carcassonne, and Ticket to Ride to Wavelength, Quoridor, and more.
After many hours of playing (and a bit of arguing over who won), we found the best family board games, the best board games for adults, and the best two-player games.
How our tests find you the best
Over 25 board games tested
We played the most popular 25 games out there (it’s a tough job) to bring you 19 of the best.
Over 30 testers
From casual players to avid gamers, our testers spent hours playing and gave honest verdicts you can trust.
Replayability
We look for games that stay fresh, exciting, and fun no matter how many times you play.
We also test
Rule clarity, gameplay and visual appeal. Everything that makes a game a winner.
The board games we tested
Discover the hot new board games, as well as the most popular classics if you're in the mood for an oldie but goodie.
Only logged-in Which? members and free account owners can view the board game test results.
Register for free to get instant access to our test results and recommendations.
| Board game | Price | Number of players | Type of game | What we liked |
|---|---|---|---|---|
Sign up to unlock for free Get instant access to these results, plus more reviews of household essentials, by signing up to a free membership. Sign up for freeAlready have an account? | Abstract strategy maze game | |||
| Energy management family racing game | ||||
| 'Don't laugh' party game | ||||
| Head-to-head dexterity game | ||||
| Snakes and ladders-like family game | ||||
| Mind-reading party game | ||||
| Tile drafting pattern building game | ||||
| 'Social deduction' game | ||||
| Nature-themed deck-building game | ||||
| Quiz party game | ||||
| Tactical hand management racing game | ||||
| Co-operative flight game | ||||
| Push-your-luck bag builder game | ||||
| Consensus guessing party game | ||||
| Tactical two-player market trading game | ||||
| Strategy tile-placement game | ||||
| Railway route building strategy game | ||||
| Co-op strategy game | ||||
| Team word-guessing party game |
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Dates tested: October 2026, December 2025, November 2023. Page last checked: October 2026. We are not able to show every retailer and cheaper prices may be available.
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The games we tested are listed below. Only logged-in Which? members and Which? free account owners can view the best card games from our tests.
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Family board games
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Marathon Mayhem
Type of game Energy management family racing game
Need to know 2-5 players; age 6+; approximately 30 minutes to play
How to play Race to be the first player to complete the 42km marathon.
You do this by spending energy tokens to run, rest to gain energy back, and play cards to help yourself or hinder other runners.
Timing your final sprint correctly is crucial to break away and pip the others to the post.
Jumanji
Type of game Snakes and ladders-like family game
Need to know 2-4 players; age 6+; approximately 30 minutes to play; Jumanji rules
How to play Race against the other players to be the first to get to the centre of the board and shout 'Jumanji'!
You roll dice to move along the track, encountering danger cards that can move you backwards if you fail their task (usually rolling a specific picture on the danger dice) or getting trapped on a 'wait for 5 or 8' space.
Wavelength
Type of game Mind-reading party game
Need to know 2-12 players; age 14+; approximately 45 minutes to play; Wavelength rules
How to play Players split into two teams. Each turn, one player is the Psychic who draws a category card and secretly sets the dial along a hidden spectrum.
All the categories are conversation starters, such as believable/unbelievable or legal/illegal.
The Psychic gives a single-word or short-phrase clue to help their team guess the dial’s position. The closer the guess, the more points scored (up to four per round).
Teams alternate turns over several rounds. The first team to reach 10 points wins.
The Traitors Board Game
Type of game 'Social deduction' game
Need to know 4-6 players; age 12+; approximately 60 minutes to play; The Traitors rules
How to play You secretly become Faithfuls or Traitors, working together to build a communal prize pot while trying to spot (or hide) the traitorous sabotage.
Each round you complete a mission to earn gold, then vote to banish whomever you suspect. You then compete for a reward in the Armoury and try to survive the Traitor 'murders'.
After four rounds, there’s a final banishment.
The top two gold-holders face off in a bluffing endgame, secretly choosing Faithful or Traitor to decide who walks away with the prize pot.
Mycelia
Type of game Nature-themed deck-building game
Need to know 1-4 players; age 9+; approximately 60 minutes to play; Mycelia rules
How to play Each player gets a double‑sided forest board and places 20 dewdrop tokens according to the chosen setup pattern.
Players start with the same small deck of basic cards. On your turn, play three cards to move or remove dewdrops and collect leaves, which can be spent to buy stronger cards from the shared marketplace. You can also use basic actions to shift or clear dewdrops.
After each turn, you draw new cards and refill the marketplace, with occasional shrine events redistributing dewdrops.
The game ends when a player clears all dewdrops from their board.
The 1% Club
Type of game Quiz party game
Need to know 3-6 players; age 8+; approximately 45 minutes to play
How to play Like the quiz show, The 1% Club challenges players with a ladder of logic questions, starting with one 90% of the public can answer and climbing toward the fiendish 1% brain teaser.
All questions are multiple choice and puzzle based, not obscure trivia. But beware: one wrong answer and you’re out. Play continues until one player remains, who then tackles the ultimate 1% question.
Crack it and you win the £100,000 grand prize (game money only, sadly).
Herd Mentality
Type of game Consensus guessing party game
Need to know 4+ players; age 10+; approximately 20 minutes to play; Herd Mentality rules
How to play In this game you score by matching the group’s answer. A question is read, everyone writes an answer, then all is revealed.
Those who choose the most common answer earn a point; first to eight wins.
But if your answer is unique, you get the pink cow – holding it means you can’t win until someone else ends up with it.
Articulate
Type of game Team word-guessing party game
Need to know 4+ players; age 12+; approximately 60 minutes to play; Articulate rules
How to play Be the first team to reach the finish line by correctly guessing what your teammates are describing.
Each team has an allotted amount of time each round for one member to describe an item on the card without using the word itself. Guess as many descriptions in the time to move that many spaces.
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Board games for adults
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- Quoridor Classic
- Last One Laughing: The Board Game
- Azul
- Heat: Pedal to the Metal
- Quacks
- Carcassonne
- Ticket to Ride
- Pandemic
Quoridor Classic
Type of game Abstract strategy maze game
Need to know 2 or 4 players; age 8+; approximately 20 minutes to play; Quoridor rules
How to play Be the first player to move your pawn to the opposite side of the board.
On your turn you can either move your pawn or place a wooden fence down to impede the movement of your opponents.
The game is also available in a mini version. It plays exactly the same, but on a smaller, more portable board.
Last One Laughing The Board Game
Type of game 'Don't laugh' party game
Need to know 3-8 players; age 14+; approximately 20 minutes to play; Last One Laughing rules
How to play Just like the TV show this game's based on, you are trying to eliminate other players by making them laugh, while trying not to laugh yourself.
Laugh once: you get a yellow card. Laugh twice you're out of the game.
The game comes with prompt joke cards to get things going, but you're encouraged to do whatever you want.
Azul
Type of game Tile drafting pattern-building game
Need to know 2-4 players; age 8+; approximately 45 minutes to play; Azul rules
How to play Each player gets a board (start with the standard side). On your turn, grab all tiles of one colour from a factory display or the centre and place them in a row on your board’s pattern lines – one colour per row, only if it fits. Extra tiles that don’t fit go to your floor line as penalties.
When a row fills up, move its tiles to the matching spots on your mosaic wall and score points for all connected tiles.
A round ends when all tiles are taken. The game ends when someone completes a horizontal row. Add bonus points for finished rows, columns, and sets of all five colours. The highest score wins.
Heat: Pedal to the Metal
Type of game Tactical hand management racing game
Need to know 1-6 players; age 10+; approximately 30-60 minutes to play; Heat: Pedal to the Metal rules
How to play Each player has an identical deck of numbered cards. You choose which cards to play and your car will move as many spaces as the numbers on the cards. The snag is that the number of cards you play is limited by the gear your car is in.
You can shift gears each turn. Higher gears mean you must play more cards, which is fine on a long straight, but as you approach a corner you'll need to slow down. If you're in too high a gear, and you go around the corner too fast, you'll spin out.
On top of this there are stress cards that will randomise the speed you move, and heat cards that can boost you and get you through corners quicker, but clog up your hand unless you slow down to cool off your engine.
Quacks
Type of game Push-your-luck bag builder game
Need to know 2-4 players; age 10+; approximately 45-80 minutes to play; Quacks rules
How to play You’re a potion brewer with a bag of ingredients, a cauldron and a thirst for points. The player that scores the most points is the winner.
Each turn, players simultaneously draw ingredients blindly from their bag and place them along the spiral track in their cauldron. The further you get along this track, the more points you get for scoring points and buying new ingredients.
Sounds simple enough, but be careful: it could all blow up in your face. Among the safe ingredients are cherry bombs, and if you end up with too many of those in your cauldron, the potion’s ruined, and you can either score points or buy ingredients, but not both.
Carcassonne
Type of game Strategy tile-placement game
Need to know 2-5 players; age 7+; approximately 45 minutes to play; Carcassonne rules
How to play Draw a square tile and place it so its fields, roads, chapels, or castles connect to the existing layout.
You can then place wooden figures (called meeples) on the tile to claim that feature.
Completed roads, chapels and castles score points, with bigger areas earning more.
Ticket to Ride
Type of game Railway route-building strategy game
Need to know 2-5 players; age 8+; approximately 60-120 minutes to play; Ticket to Ride rules
How to play Collect coloured train cards to claim routes across the USA (or other maps).
You score for each route you build and earn bonuses for completing destination cards that link specific cities. The highest score wins.
Variants add twists: Europe includes ferries and tunnels, while Ticket to Ride London offers a quicker, bus-route version.
Pandemic
Type of game Co-operative strategy game
Need to know 2-4 players; age 8+; approximately 60 minutes to play; Pandemic rules
How to play Players take on roles with special abilities and cooperate to stop four diseases.
Each turn you take four actions, then draw cards and reveal new infections.
Collect five cards of the same colour and reach a research station to discover a cure.
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Two-player board games
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Kluster Duo
Type of game Head-to-head dexterity game
Need to know 1 or 2 players; age 14+; approximately 10 minutes to play; contains strong magnets: keep out of reach of children
How to play Each player takes turns to place a magnet inside the corded play area.
Of course, magnets attract and repel, and if any magnets snap together on your turn, you have to pick them up and add them to your hand. The first player to place all their magnets down wins.
Sky Team
Type of game Co-operative flight game
Need to know 2 players; age 12+; approximately 20 minutes to play; Sky Team rules
How to play In this dice-placement game, two players try to land a plane safely.
Each round begins with a strategy discussion, after which you roll your four dice in secret and must place them without speaking.
You’ll use dice to manage the plane’s axis, control speed, clear traffic, deploy flaps, landing gear, and brakes.
By the end of the final round, you must be aligned with the runway, have no planes in your path, have all required systems deployed, and have reduced your speed enough to complete a safe landing.
There is an expansion pack: Turbulence, which adds 20 more scenarios and mechanics.
Jaipur
Type of game Tactical two-player market trading game
Need to know 2 players; age 12+; approximately 30 minutes to play; Jaipur rules
How to play Played in rounds, you take goods from the market and sell them for points.
The player with the most points wins the round. The overall winner is the first to win two rounds.
Score more points for selling multiples of the same goods, but watch out: repeated sales of the same type score less over time.
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How we test board games
Many free-to-access websites review board games using a small group, or just one tester. These sites may also receive board games free of charge, directly from manufacturers.
Which? tests are different. Our tests are based on collecting the views of over 30 people, ranging from board game newbies to avid gamers.
Everyone shared their insights, gleaned from hours of playing these games, to help you choose the right game to add to your collection (or start one) this year.
Brands cannot buy their way into our testing. We select the most searched-for board games, and we pay for every single one we test.
We also regularly revisit the board games on sale to see if there are any more popular models that need testing.
We’re not influenced by third parties and we don't accept freebies from product manufacturers or retailers. As a not-for-profit organisation, we have no owners, shareholders or government departments to answer to, so we work entirely on behalf of you, the consumer – nobody else.
Read our full statement of editorial independence.
How we choose board games
To make sure our reviews are 100% independent, we never accept free product samples from manufacturers or brands. Instead, we invest hundreds of pounds every year buying board games directly from major retailers.
We've tested over 25 board games (so far), catering for a range of budgets and types of games – everything from classic games such as Articulate and gateway games such as Ticket To Ride, to TV show tie-ins including The Traitors and Last One Laughing.
This means we can showcase a range of board games that you may never have come across, and give you insights from both casual and seasoned players.