# 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.

*By YPB Team · Published November 5, 2026 · https://youpick.best/ranking/what-is-the-best-cooperative-board-game*

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## Current results (no votes yet)

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. **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. **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. **Spirit Island**
   R. Eric Reuss's 2017 game from Greater Than Games in which island spirits work together to drive off colonizing invaders.
5. **Gloomhaven**
   Isaac Childres's 2017 dungeon-crawling campaign game from Cephalofair Games for one to four players, with more than 90 scenarios.
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. **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. **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. **Forbidden Island**
   Matt Leacock's 2010 game from Gamewright in which adventurers collect four treasures before the sinking island floods.
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. **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. **Arkham Horror: The Card Game**
   Nate French and Matthew Newman's 2016 Living Card Game from Fantasy Flight Games, a Lovecraftian investigation campaign.
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. **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. **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. **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. **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. **Eldritch Horror**
   Corey Konieczka and Nikki Valens's 2013 globe-trotting Cthulhu Mythos game from Fantasy Flight Games.
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. **Codenames: Duet**
   Scot Eaton and Vlaada Chvátil's 2017 two-player cooperative version of Codenames.
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. **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. **Flash Point: Fire Rescue**
   Kevin Lanzing's 2011 game from Indie Boards & Cards in which firefighters rescue victims from a burning building.
24. **Frosthaven**
   Isaac Childres's standalone sequel to Gloomhaven, set in a northern outpost that players rebuild between scenarios.
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. **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. **Ghost Stories**
   Antoine Bauza's 2008 game from Repos Production in which Taoist monks defend a village from waves of ghosts.
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. **Mansions of Madness**
   Nikki Valens's 2016 second edition of the app-driven horror investigation game from Fantasy Flight Games.
30. **Sherlock Holmes Consulting Detective**
   A 1981 casebook game in which players solve Victorian London cases together by visiting addresses and reading clues.
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.

Tags: board games, tabletop, cooperative