10 Best New Board Games In 2024

New board games come out all the time, although it can be incredibly difficult to keep track. If you want to play the best and latest games, then don’t worry. Here are some of the best board games to come out in 2024.

Arcs

Without a doubt, the best and most acclaimed board game to come out in 2024 is Arcs, by Leder Games (creators of Oath and Root). A trick-taking space game about seizing initiatives, timing, and improvising.

The system of player actions in Arcs is determined by a unique card system that’s based from the standard trick-taking system. The actions the players take will allow them to build up an army to fight other players, or a series of other actions, to reach their chosen ambition to win the game.

There is also a campaign system for Arcs, only elevating it to become not just the greatest board game of this year, but one of the best standard.

Botanicus

Botanicus is a light and tight game of arranging beautiful garden to satisfy paying customers. In worker-placement style gameplay, you and your opponents will be sharing an action board, meaning that you can snatch up actions that your opponents want to do to thwart their progress.

This is a surprisingly quick game, and it’s gorgeously illustrated, meaning it’s a great pick for casual gamers and families whilst also catering to strategists and fervent board gamers. Having to plan out your garden to satisfy your customers makes for an interesting variable that makes every game unique.

One of the most serene games to be released this year, Botanicus provides strategic gameplay that can be enjoyed by all.

Minos: Dawn of the Bronze Age

In a setting not typically seen, in Minos: Dawn of the Bronze Age, players will be the heads of Minoan clans, fighting for the title of Minos.

Unlike other board games with a similar goal, you won’t be raising armies and laying waste to the other players. Instead, each player will be carving out the identity of their clans through building, trading, and fighting off outsiders. Allocating dice to these actions allows players to benefit from high and low rolls, and the tableau-building mechanic is satisfying.

A game with only four rounds, every action counts in Minos: Dawn of the Bronze Age. The player who establishes themselves the most will earn the title of Minos, so good luck!

Wilmot’s Warehouse

Wilmot’s Warehouse is somehow a memory game that’s incredibly fun, silly, and shows you just how good (or bad) your memory is.

In this colorful game, you and your friends will be organizing a warehouse of dozens of abstract goods. However, when you place a tile, it goes face-down. Once the dozens of items have been placed and the warehouse is full, you will all have to work together to complete the memory game.

To make your job easier in Wilmot’s Warehouse, you and your team should make up stories to help you remember where everything is in relation to each other. Due to the strange nature of the goods, any sort of story you make up will be a silly one indeed.

Harmonies

Harmonies is a beautiful game of tile placement to secure points for victory. You’ll be given habitat cards that will instruct you how to form a habitat out of a select arrangement of different colored tiles, and you’ll have to place tiles on your board to form them to score points.

Super stylish and satisfying, Harmonies will have you try to fit as many of these arrangements on your boards as possible, leading to advanced puzzling and requiring different perspectives. The tile placement isn’t just 2D, either. You’ll be forming pillars with the tiles on your small grid.

A simple yet deeply tactical game, Harmonies is a stylish puzzle game of placing wonderfully sculpted and painted tokens.

Operation Barclay

Operation Barclay pits two players against each other in the relatively untouched Mediterranean theatre of World War 2. One player will be the Abwehr, who are trying to gather intel and evidence about the Allied military placements. The LCS, however, will be trying to mask and conceal evidence from falling into enemy hands.

Players will conduct their battle of espionage and counterintelligence through playing tricks with 5-card hands. However, there is more to the game than simply winning tricks, as placing correct bets will earn more tokens than simply winning, meaning that bluffing and playing your opponent is worth more than the luck of the draw.

The card game in Operation Barclay is incredibly interesting, as each card having raid or reconnaissance icons, and each player having more than one deck to draw from.

The Lord of the Rings: Duel for Middle-earth

The Lord of the Rings: Duel for Middle-earth is an exciting asymmetrical card game for two players. It’s like a heavily condensed version of War of the Ring, with one player representing the Fellowship and the forces of good, and one player taking the mantle of Sauron.

This game is not just a reskin of 7 Wonders Duel, but a whole new game that simply borrows its systems. The pyramid of shared resources is present, with players trying to grab both what they need and what their opponent might need. But there’s also a very unique track that depicts the Fellowship running away from the Nazgul’s, and a board where armies will be placed.

The Lord of the Rings: Duel for Middle-earth is an incredible game that really adapts the systems of 7 Wonders Duel into something much greater, at least in my opinion.

Windmill Valley

In Windmill Valley, players take on the roles of tulip farmers and entrepreneurs in the famous Bloemen Route in the Netherlands. An already gorgeous scene, the board game brings it to life with wooden windmill tokens and many colorful tulip tokens that will soon litter the board.

Ultimately, Windmill Valley is a euro game, as players build up their engine to fulfil contracts, plant tulips, build windmills, and trade for exotic tulips for even more points at the end of the game. As players build up their action wheels and plant tulips, the board will become much prettier and much more valuable.

The theme may be an unusual one for this type of game, but Windmill Valley does it justice by providing an accessible game that’s easy on the eyes.

Stamp Swamp

Stamp collecting may not sounds like the most riveting thing, but Stamp Swap brings this infamously boring hobby to life.

Stamp Swap‘s main mechanic is the organization and splitting of your stamp collection to swap with another player. The groups will go head to head and will divide their collections, and then each group will swap one of their stamp collections. The constant trading and swapping of large groups of tiles is always an enthralling and tense process. You’ll never quite know what you’re going to get.

Every round, you can use your collection to score one of four goals, but you’ll have to be careful as each can only be scored once in each game!

Beyond The Horizon

Beyond The Horizon is a civilization-building game where players will be going head-to-head to build up their land to create the most successful and influential society. With technological, developmental, and expansion factors coming into play, there are many ways to score points and out-perform your opponents.

Interestingly, Beyond The Horizon will only end when enough goals have been reached between the players. As players build and expand, they’ll be earning points, and when the game has come to an end, the player with the most points wins.

Having an end point that will change between games keeps Beyond The Horizon interesting and unique each time you play, and this isn’t even to mention the satisfying and colorful player boards and development boards.

With this selection of recent board games released in 2024, you can expand your collection with hot new releases. The trouble now is picking which ones to get!