Top table games of 2021

The pandemic has taken longer than many people expected. But there is a silver lining: much more time for board games with friends or family. And 2021 brought a lot of cool games and made you remember the hits of previous years. In this selection, we’ve gathered the most interesting ones that are suitable for playing with friends on a winter evening or at a party.

Lost Ruins of Arnak

This table game can be played by up to 4 players at a time. The difficulty of the game is stated to be medium. In fact, the game was released in 2020 and became a real hit, but even in 2021 its popularity did not decrease. Fans of Indiana Jones, Uncharted and Jungle Calling stories will love this game.

The game’s artwork will impress you with its quality and detail: 

• the brightly coloured playing field;
• cards with unique artwork;
• the game has no narrative component, but it does have a great sense of adventure and exploration.

Although there’s no narrative component to the game, it conveys the atmosphere of adventure perfectly!

Lost Ruins of Arnak combines two mechanisms in the game: building a deck and fielding workers. As players explore the island, they discover new types of action and improve their deck with powerful cards. Victory points can be earned in a number of ways, including battling tomb guards and advancing on the exploration scale. The game is superbly balanced. By the way, there is no single correct strategy, so every game is unique and not like the previous one.

Dune: Imperium

Dune requires up to 4 players who are ready for medium difficulty. Immediately after its announcement, it became one of the most anticipated board games of 2021. Although this may be due to the release of the film of the same name. But it’s worth admitting that the character cards from the film adaptation look great.

In ‘Empire’, players take on the role of leaders of the Great House of Landsraad and try to seize power in Arrakis by various means (intrigue, combat, skillful leadership). This is as follows: at the start all players have the same decks, but with different leader cards with unique abilities. And turn by turn, players send their agents to perform different kinds of tasks, which improves their deck. 

When there are no agents left, everyone unlocks the remaining cards. These cards can either help gain new cards for the next round, or help win the current military conflict. The first player to score 10 points wins!

Gloomhaven: Jaws of the Lion

This is a high difficulty game that can be played by a maximum of 4 players at a time. The game was released in 2017, at which time it took the podiums of all the rankings! But a number of characteristics, including its sheer scale and the game’s price, quickly reduced its popularity. But the game’s creator, Isaac Childress, managed to appeal to a more casual audience by releasing Gloomhaven: Jaws of the Lion.  This installment is 2-in-1: a standalone add-on and at the same time a prequel and starter pack to the “big” Gloomhaven.

The core gameplay consists of battling monsters and boosting your character – this remains the same as in the original. Compared to other dungeon crawlers, this game uses personal decks with hero abilities and attack modifiers as a random number generator, rather than the usual dice.

Of note is the distinctive design of the playing field – just open the desired page of the brochure and place your heroes’ figures on it. This approach greatly reduces the time it takes to prepare a game.

ANNO 1800

Gather as a foursome to play with friends or family. Although the game is challenging, it’s a lot of fun! This is a tabletop adaptation of the Ubisoft hit of the same name. In ANNO 1800, players establish trade routes between the old and new worlds, develop production, and meet the needs and demands of the population. Initially the inhabitants purchase only food and clothing, but over time they become interested in culture, entertainment and luxury goods.

Although the game’s design looks ascetic: lots of cardboard tokens and a few packs of cards. But the main advantage of ANNO 1800 is the extensive and multifaceted technology tree, which is rarely seen in table games. Incredibly, building capitalism is surprisingly interesting!

Witcher: The Old World

“The Witcher: The Old World” is the largest scale release of a tabletop adventure in the The Witcher universe. Players wander the world, completing quests along the way, competing against each other to collect the required number of trophies.

Players will go back in time to a time when monsters swarmed the Continent and the once unified witchcraft chain split into six rival schools. Witches will have to prove their prowess with blood and sword, hunting monsters and battling each other. And only one of them will go down in legend!

The bottom line

If you haven’t tried these games out yet, then by all means remedy that! One of the board games on offer will give you new emotions, immerse you in a world of new experiences and keep you from getting bored!