What is the best cooperative board game?

Some of these boxes hold a year-long campaign, others a twenty-minute card game played in silence. Every one asks the table to win or lose together.

1. 1
   Sky Team

   Luc Rémond's 2023 two-player game from Le Scorpion Masqué in which a pilot and co-pilot place hidden dice to land a plane; it won the 2024 Spiel des Jahres.
2. 2
   Pandemic

   Matt Leacock's 2008 game from Z-Man Games in which two to four players race to cure four diseases spreading across a world map.
3. 3
   Pandemic Legacy: Season 1

   Rob Daviau and Matt Leacock's 2015 campaign version of Pandemic, played month by month with permanent changes to the board and cards.
4. 4
   Spirit Island

   R. Eric Reuss's 2017 game from Greater Than Games in which island spirits work together to drive off colonizing invaders.
5. 5
   Gloomhaven

   Isaac Childres's 2017 dungeon-crawling campaign game from Cephalofair Games for one to four players, with more than 90 scenarios.
6. 6
   Gloomhaven: Jaws of the Lion

   A 2020 standalone, smaller entry in the Gloomhaven series with 25 scenarios and a tutorial that teaches the rules during play.
7. 7
   The Crew

   Thomas Sing's 2019 trick-taking card game The Quest for Planet Nine, played as a 50-mission campaign; it won the 2020 Kennerspiel des Jahres.
8. 8
   Hanabi

   Antoine Bauza's 2010 card game in which players hold their cards facing outward and give limited clues to build fireworks; it won the 2013 Spiel des Jahres.
9. 9
   Forbidden Island

   Matt Leacock's 2010 game from Gamewright in which adventurers collect four treasures before the sinking island floods.
10. 10
    Forbidden Desert

    Matt Leacock's 2013 follow-up to Forbidden Island, in which players dig through shifting sand to rebuild a flying machine and escape.
11. 11
    Mysterium

    Oleksandr Nevskiy and Oleg Sidorenko's 2015 game from Libellud in which a silent ghost guides psychics to a murder's solution with illustrated vision cards.
12. 12
    Arkham Horror: The Card Game

    Nate French and Matthew Newman's 2016 Living Card Game from Fantasy Flight Games, a Lovecraftian investigation campaign.
13. 13
    Robinson Crusoe

    Ignacy Trzewiczek's 2012 survival game Adventures on the Cursed Island from Portal Games, in which castaways build shelter and gather food across set scenarios.
14. 14
    Mechs vs. Minions

    Riot Games' 2016 tabletop campaign set in the League of Legends universe, in which players program their mechs with command cards.
15. 15
    The Mind

    Wolfgang Warsch's 2018 card game from Nürnberger-Spielkarten-Verlag in which players must lay numbered cards in rising order without speaking.
16. 16
    Horrified

    Prospero Hall's 2019 game from Ravensburger in which players defend a village from Universal Monsters such as Dracula and the Wolf Man.
17. 17
    Marvel Champions

    Michael Boggs, Nate French and Caleb Grace's 2019 Living Card Game from Fantasy Flight Games in which players build decks for Marvel heroes to defeat villains.
18. 18
    Eldritch Horror

    Corey Konieczka and Nikki Valens's 2013 globe-trotting Cthulhu Mythos game from Fantasy Flight Games.
19. 19
    Just One

    Ludovic Roudy and Bruno Sautter's 2018 party word game in which matching clues cancel each other out; it won the 2019 Spiel des Jahres.
20. 20
    Codenames: Duet

    Scot Eaton and Vlaada Chvátil's 2017 two-player cooperative version of Codenames.
21. 21
    Journeys in Middle-earth

    Fantasy Flight Games' 2019 app-driven campaign game set in Tolkien's world, designed by Nathan Hajek and Grace Holdinghaus.
22. 22
    Paleo

    Peter Rustemeyer's 2020 game in which a Stone Age tribe survives by working through decks of encounter cards; it won the 2021 Kennerspiel des Jahres.
23. 23
    Flash Point: Fire Rescue

    Kevin Lanzing's 2011 game from Indie Boards & Cards in which firefighters rescue victims from a burning building.
24. 24
    Frosthaven

    Isaac Childres's standalone sequel to Gloomhaven, set in a northern outpost that players rebuild between scenarios.
25. 25
    Legends of Andor

    Michael Menzel's 2012 fantasy adventure game in which heroes defend a kingdom through scripted legends; it won the 2013 Kennerspiel des Jahres.
26. 26
    EXIT: The Game

    Inka and Markus Brand's escape-room card game series from Kosmos, whose first boxes won the 2017 Kennerspiel des Jahres.
27. 27
    Ghost Stories

    Antoine Bauza's 2008 game from Repos Production in which Taoist monks defend a village from waves of ghosts.
28. 28
    Aeon's End

    Kevin Riley's 2016 deck-building game from Action Phase Games and Indie Boards & Cards in which mages defend the last city from a nemesis.
29. 29
    Mansions of Madness

    Nikki Valens's 2016 second edition of the app-driven horror investigation game from Fantasy Flight Games.
30. 30
    Sherlock Holmes Consulting Detective

    A 1981 casebook game in which players solve Victorian London cases together by visiting addresses and reading clues.
31. 31
    Lord of the Rings LCG

    Nate French's 2011 cooperative Living Card Game from Fantasy Flight Games, The Lord of the Rings: The Card Game.

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