The 12 best board games in 2026, chosen by lifelong collectors and industry experts
I’ve been writing about games in one form or another since 2012, but these days you’ll find me managing GamesRadar+’s tabletop gaming and toy coverage (I spend my time here handling everything from board game reviews to the latest Lego news). For those who prefer more cerebral tabletop experiences, I’d highly recommend this one – it’s amongst the best puzzle board games and will keep you coming back for another bite of the apple. It’s a textbook definition of what the best 2-player board games should look like. He began playing board games as soon as he was able to roll dice, and early favorites included the pirate-themed Buccaneer along with Talisman. Choose to practise individual times tables, or groups of facts, or all the facts to x5, x10, x12 or x15!
You’ll need those resources if you want to build other things, and can take them from another player’s properties when necessary… but this means they’re one step closer to scoring. There’s a delicious, circular structure of dependencies at the heart of this game; you must outperform your foes to earn points that could win you the match, but will paradoxically need to utilize their resources in order to get what you want. Set in the smog and soot of industrial revolution Britain, this game is all about forging a business empire.
Compare the addition, subtraction and multiplication equations by using the greater than, less than or equals to signs. Shoot the meteors that have the answers to the multiplication questions. A multiple choice game with two game modes. Say you’ve played standard poker all your life but you want something new. Numbered cards hold their values while picture cards are worth 0 and aces are 1.
This is a phenomenally chilled-out experience that anyone can get their head around, making it the perfect option to play with your family.Read more below He’s currently loving Catan on the Road, a portable version of the iconic game. Would you prefer an in-depth strategy game that’ll really put your skills to the test? Your weekly update on everything you could ever want to know about the games you already love, games we know you’re going to love in the near future, and tales from the communities that surround them.
Learn the 2 times table All table games are fully compatible with smartphones and tablets. Mental Maths Train is a maths game which focuses on the essential vocabulary of addition, subtraction, multiplication and division. Quality plays a huge part in buying any multi-games table, but it depends on what you will be using it for. Some multi-games tables are designed to be a permanent fixture in a game room and are not easy to move around. A table with plenty of games to choose from is great but pretty useless if you’re not going to play any of them.
Best board games FAQ
That’s why the GamesRadar+ experts and I have rustled up what we think are the very best board games. No matter what you’re in the mood for, you’ll always find something to suit you amongst the best board games. ✅ All reviews by experts✅ 100s of board games tested✅ Years of industry experience This strategic yet chance-driven board game is so much fun to play – you won’t know what you did before it!
Dice, Cards and Tiles
Players have a wide range of betting options in online roulette, with them being able to wager on things such as the colour, exact number or even a category of numbers that they think the ball will land in. Play the game and see if you can beat the Times Tables Trials! You can also complete some fun interactive activities! Gambling can be addictive, please play responsibly. Please play responsibly.
Air Hockey Tables
The aim of the game is to guess what everyone else is thinking — win cows if your answer is in the majority. They’re also a brilliant excuse to unplug, unwind and enjoy a little screen-free time. Either 1 or 2 player options. A useful teaching resource to demonstrate multiplications on an IWB.
It’s rare to find a board game you don’t mind losing at, but Ticket to Ride manages it. Benjamin has covered the board game industry on GamesRadar+ since 2018, and has written professionally for well over a decade. Sign up to our new Switch 2 newsletter, where we bring you the latest talking points on Nintendo’s new console each week, bring you up to date on the news, and recommend what games to play. Teaching Tables offers interactive maths games designed to make learning engaging, memorable and accessible for primary-aged children.
- It combines inventing funny answers with not getting caught and you have to try and convince the guesser your answer is the right one.
- Grew up playing snooker with his dad, and graduated to his own table at university.
- Welcome to Teaching Tables, where you can explore free interactive maths games designed for children aged 5–11.
- I can’t tell you the amount of times my team has gotten the right answer… before talking themselves out of it and choosing something completely tangential.
If you enjoy playing our online table casino games, then you might like to try some of our other offerings that we haven’t talked about yet. Whether you choose to play online table games on your desktop, tablet or smartphone, this is entirely possible thanks to all of these featuring adaptive HTML5 backbones. Finally, whether it’s playing online table games or online slot games, all our games have been designed to ensure that you can access our great selection of games on any preferred device type.
If you join and play £10+ you can spin our Prize Wheel to win up to 500 free spins! If you enjoy a thrilling game of poker, you can’t go wrong with this one! If you enjoy a good game of poker, for example, our popular live poker card game Side Bet City could be for you! In poker, the goal is to build the best possible hand using a combination of dealt cards and community cards. In online blackjack, users aim to form a card hand as close to the value of 21 as possible, all without exceeding this total.
Partial Product Finder allows multiplication combinations to be represented as a rectangle, or array. Fantastic for improving your mental maths. It is useful for showing the commutative law of multiplication which means you can multiply numbers in any order and the answer is the same. Practise your multiplication skills. A multiple choice game which can give children confidence in the four arithmetic operations.
Get in on the action yourself with the official board game. A good old-fashioned board game is hard to beat when it comes to bringing a group together and getting competitive. If you want to know what the number one board game in the world is, it largely depends on what you’re judging that on.
This ancient pastime has been going strong for longer than anyone can remember, and such staying power is reflected in annual sales. Similarly, narrative game Vantage has caused a ruckus – one which is well deserved, according to our in-depth Vantage review. Indeed, Leacock himself said that it was “definitely the most thematically and mechanically rich game I’ve worked on” when we interviewed him earlier this year. I’ve seen nothing but positive gushing about this online thanks to its clever twist on a familiar formula. We also run multiple sessions with different player counts, just to see how the experience differs.
Azul encourages this by forcing you to play differently each time, and your strategy must shift depending on the combinations of colors available early on. Trying to figure out the best combination of actions to use at any one time is a compelling mini-game in itself, and juggling your limited resources (you’ll lose cards as you progress) makes for a challenging puzzle. You need to earn points by attacking the city, and players do this by placing your character on that board space when it’s empty. As you might expect from a board game about wanton destruction, King of Tokyo isn’t difficult to understand. Doing so may benefit you, but at the same time, it’ll also give the other players an advantage. It’s an easy recommendation for anyone wanting a tactical board game.
With this in mind, it’s hard to argue that Catan doesn’t deserve a spot here as one of the best board games overall. There’s a reason why Catan is often called the perfect ‘gateway’ game; it’s accessible, but still has enough bite to keep you invested no matter your skill-level or experience with board games. Want to get stuck into the best board games right away? That means we have a pretty good idea of what makes the best board games tick, so we won’t ever recommend a product we don’t truly believe in. Just head over to our guide on how to choose board games further down the page. As an example, our team’s top choice – Catan – is the perfect gateway game for newcomers but also serves as a board game night essential for more experienced players due to trend-setting mechanics.
Fun KS2 maths resources to learn the 12 times table. Fun KS2 maths resources to learn the 11 times table. Learn everything you need to know about the 11 times table with our KS2 maths resources below! Fun KS1 maths activities to learn the 10 times table. Practise counting in 10s with our KS1 maths 10 times table song and resources!
Finally, there are enough cards that you shouldn’t get bored any time soon. That also means they don’t have an expiry date, unlike many trivia games. Azul can feel more like a personal puzzle game than a head-to-head challenge as a result, which makes it a great 2-player option. “The strategy to Azul sneaks up on you, to the point where I’m loathe to go into too much detail around specifics – it’s just too much fun discovering each piece of the puzzle yourself.” This is perfect for game night with your grown-up friends, and it’s one you can keep coming back to time and time again.
Or is it better to connect multiple words as best you can, even if there’s a risk players will choose the wrong card? (As an example, you might say “war” so that your team picks ‘battleship’ and ‘missile.’) If players select the wrong card and hit an innocent bystander, the turn ends immediately. Spies or innocent bystanders are hidden under each of them, but only two players – “spymasters” – know where.
Codenames is a board game comprising of two teams led by their respective spymasters. “Fabulous music based game ideal for family play,” says Peter. “Everyone plays at the same time answering a series of questions, the trick is to give the same answer as fellow players to be part of the ‘herd’,” says Peter. Nothing beats a good old-fashioned board game – especially as the nights draw in and there’s a chill in the air. You can place bets in real time and try out innovative features like live chats and bonus games. While video slots are mostly all about luck, you can apply some level of strategy to games like blackjack and poker.
Such a balance of risk and reward secures Pandemic’s throne as one of the best board games overall. Want satisfying cooperative board games for your non uk casino collection? If you can only get one board game for 2 players, make it this one. That’s why Catan has endured for 30 years – it makes memories, and few board games give you as much freedom to chart your own course.