Top 10 Best Games at Releasing Essen Spiel 2026 That I've Already Played!
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Transcript
Later this week, arguably the largest board game convention in the world is going to have 1,300 new games that I've played some of them and I'm here to tell you which ones that I think are amazing that you have to go check out. Hello, my friends. Essen Spiel is here, 2026. Can't believe it. So, now I've already done a video of my top 10 most anticipated games that's at this the Spiel fair. That was happened late last week, but this that's one Those are ones that I had not played, which was just excited about. These ones, in my opinion, this list is an even better list because these are ones that I've actually played that that have either just recently been released or are releasing at Essen that I've already played that I think are amazing to check out. So, here we go.
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Number 10.
Okay, the first one is a two-to-four player hidden movement game where both of you move in a hidden way. This is Star Trek: Space Hunt. This is a re-implementation of Sonar, which was a re-implementation of Captain Sonar. Sonar was the two-to-four player version, then there was Sonar: Family. This is a re-implementation of both of those putting a Star Trek theme on it, but they actually redeveloped it quite a bit. I had some problems. I liked Sonar, the the the two-to-four player version, but it had some issues. This fixes those for me and makes it really cool. So, you can either play this game two-player or three-player, which you probably won't won't want to do, or four-player. Uh and this is in this game you're both moving around trying to hit the other player's base once and then destroy the other person. But in this game it's really cool because you have both a turn-based way to learn the game or if you're playing a two-player game, I think it's better during the turn-based. It's more thinky.
But you can play it in real time, which I've played the two-player game real time, too. It's still fun, but it's pretty chaotic. Four-players real time is awesome. And it's fixed a lot of the issues from before, but you're both hidden movement in real time trying to get things done, but there's a new There's a lot of new mechanisms here, too. Still streamlined, but now you can flip to hyperspace and move really fast and then flip your way back. There's There's new ideas here that I think were implemented well and fixed some of the issues I had with Sodaar. So, if you like hidden movement games either uh in turn-by-turn or real time. Uh both of them feel very different, but they're both good. That's Star Trek Space Hunt. That's from Mad I Go.
Number nine.
This next one is a medium-weight Euro game called Oil Rock. This is from Cranio Creations. Uh in this game you are it's worker placement where you has a really interesting action wheel where you're getting certain amount of actions depending on the type of worker you have. Sometimes one, sometimes more than one. Uh and you're you're doing different things. You're building up your drill rigs. You are drilling down. You're getting oil. You're You're You're running through refineries. It's got some combo building that get better and better and get some extra things. You're moving up a progress track that is going to allow you to to upgrade your character to get more workers and get better abilities. It You're going to be moving on a map through and putting headquarters down and getting abilities there. So, it is a medium-weight worker placement game where everything sort of fixed fits together well. Uh I've just recently reviewed this one as well. So, Oil Rock is a If you like medium weight Eurogames, check this one out.
Number eight.
The next one is a re-implementation of one of my favorite strategy games I've come across recently called Fromage, and then they came out with a standalone sequel to that called Fromaggio last year. Well, now there is Bordeaux. Now, this takes the engine and the system of those two games, which is basically simultaneous worker placement, and puts it in a 25-ish minute experience where it's everyone has their own sheet of colored paper, and everyone is sort of playing simultaneously just like the real game, but now it's wine, but it's all it's more streamlined. Basically, you can play this game sitting around a table. You can be playing this game on a road trip, not the driver, of course, but everyone else. It's a very portable, quicker version of those games. Maybe there's a little bit less going on, like there's no special tiles and upgrades and structures and stuff, but pretty much everything else is there.
It's a pretty interesting way of taking If you liked Fromage or Fromaggio, and you want like a quicker, easier to play, portable version of that, Bordeaux I've recently reviewed this one as well, so check out.
Number seven.
The next one is a game that's gotten a lot of praise over the last year, but it's been really hard to get called Eternal Decks. This is a cooperative game that I reviewed last year, about a year ago, or maybe earlier this year. And in this game, it's a cooperative game that has some very interesting card play. It has you're playing cards cooperatively. You're trying to get get rid of the You're trying not to run out of cards, but you're trying to unlock these Eternal Decks, which add more more cards to your hand, cuz again, if you run out of cards, you lose, but these cards have different restrict different things, but then also certain things are going to have restrictions of to what you can play where. It's it's I've reviewed it, so go check it out fully. The game has like five or six different complete scenarios that you can play, but all of them are replayable.
Uh it's a very interesting game. It looks beautiful. Uh it's really fun. If you like cooperative sort of limited communication cooperative card games, this is a really great one to check out, Eternal Decks.
Number six.
The next one is a brand new game releasing at Essen that I just reviewed called The Beat Rock Stars of the Galaxy. This is coming from Nerd Lab Games, uh the publishers of Mindbug, which is amazing game, and Agent Avenue, actually. Uh the one of the co-designers of this game, uh Christian Kudahl, did was a co-designer on both Mindbug and Agent Avenue. And this is a limited communication cooperative card game. Think uh and I just recently reviewed it. Think of like Take Time from last year, but in my opinion, I like this even more because you have more information and more things to deduce on your turn, uh on on what other people's could or might not have in their hands based upon what's already been played. Uh but if you liked Take Time, I think you'll like this one. This has a super cool theme. You're flying around the galaxy, playing venues that are space-themed.
Um and you're you're playing cards trying to play the venue the right way, songs being loud, being right on point. Uh but if you like limited communication cooperative card games like Take Time, this is a no-brainer cuz I like this one even better. Go check out my review of The Beat Rock Stars of the Galaxy.
Number five.
This next one is a reprinting and a redevelopment of an older Reiner Knizia game called Rheinlander. Now, this came out at Gen Con from 25th Century Games, and I've reviewed this. You can go check it out on my channel, and I think this game is absolutely fantastic. Very streamlined sort of area control mechanisms, but this ver- the newest version of the game adds some advanced couple of different advanced modules, which I highly recommend you play with after you've played it before. All these different special abilities and different buildings and stuff that you can you can trigger. It is just a very streamlined area control game that feels almost a little bit like the classic Sid Sackson game Acquire where you're playing a card and you're placing your piece on that card for area control, but you're also trying to be larger than someone else and then merge them together kind of like you do in Acquire.
Very interesting game. Go see my review on this one, Rhinlander.
Number four.
The next one is a huge Kickstarter from Bezier Games and it came out this year from fulfillment and it was at Gen Con, but it's now releasing in Germany and that's called The Game Makers. This is designed by Ben Rosset who earlier I just talked about Fromage and Fromaggio. He designed that. He was a and Game Makers uses a similar system to action selection mechanism worker placement where everyone's doing it simultaneously and the further away you put your worker, the better action you get, but the longer it takes, more turns it takes to get it back. It uses if you like Fromage or Fromaggio, that part of this game will feel familiar, but everything else is different. The production of this game is off the charts. It is a beautiful This thing is just a beauty to look at on the table. But you're building literally licensed board games. All the most popular games that you know and love on Board Game Geek that all these publishers make, um you're making these with you know, gathering resources, but you don't just have multi-use cards in this game. You have multi-use components. Everything you get in this game can be used for different things whether it's building an engine or getting special abilities or actually building the games. You're building a tableau of your game collection on your on your on your wall essentially or in in your in your shelf. The Game Makers is from Bezier Games. Check this one out.
Number three.
The next one is Bella Vista. This is a game co-designed by Bruno Cathala, my favorite board game designer, and wow, this game is fantastic. It's a city building game that has amazing table presence, where you're building up the land by placing buildings, but it has a secret bidding element, similar to what he did in Five Tribes, where you're bidding using coins, which are essentially your points. You're bidding with points to how soon in the round you want to be able to place a building, and that's important because um when you place a building, you're basically trying to gain coins, because as you place them, every single building that's next to it that you're taller than, you get some points. And if you're the tallest building that's around around it, you're getting even more coins. So, sometimes you want to go first in order to kind of get that before someone else does, but there's also these goals, these sort of contracts you're trying to fulfill, and that's in player order. So, you sometimes you want to go first and bid more cuz you're going to be able to get that goal uh very interesting in that way. The public There's some public end goal objectives. There's different cities that you can build that have different layouts. There's also restrictions each round as to what you can place. Table presence is amazing.
I've reviewed this game. It is sort of a lighter game, but man, table presence and how good the mechanisms are for how light it is, tough choices, building cities, it just it looks awesome, it feels awesome, uh and that's Bella Vista.
Number two.
The next one is called Guns & Battle for Toshiro Ambo, and wow, I'm mentioning Ben Rosset's name again. Uh he uh co-designed this. Uh I believe he did it with Matthew O'Malley. Don't don't quote me on that. I did I need to double-check that. Uh this game I've recently reviewed. It's wow, this game took like the goal selection of the goal uh objectives of like Scythe, where like you have a bunch of different goals you can go get, but it also is like a dudes on the map game, and it's asymmetric. There's a bunch of different factions you can play. They all feel and play very different, uh but you're going around and doing different things. Like, you're trying to take over certain areas, you're trying to control shrines, you're You're to win battles, you're trying to But no, not all about battles. You can win this game without ever even winning a battle. Uh it's more like if a Euro game and a dudes on a map game sort of a blended, similar to how Scythe did it but it also feels very different from Scythe. Uh but the big thing here is like it plays two to five players and it plays all player counts well. Two player game only takes like 35 minutes and it's really good.
Five player game takes 90 minutes or less and if you're playing like three or four players, like an hour. You get this huge epic feeling of a game in about an hour uh or 60 to 90 for sure for the large large player counts and it's just fantastic. If you like Scythe, if you like uh you know, dudes on a map style games like Kemet and things like that, ooh, check this one out. Super streamlined, really good. Guns and Battle of Tulshing Rambo.
Number one.
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It's a card driven game where you're getting cards, you're building them up. Things are sliding off your board and triggering abilities. You have all these abilities on on the cards that you're playing. You're finding different things. You're doing you're finding wonders. You're using other people's wonders uh and you're just building up over the different ages. Uh it is a medium weight Euro game but after the 60-ish minutes that you play this, 90 if you're playing with a higher player count, cuz it has a lot of simultaneous play in it, much like the last one I just mentioned. This game's fantastic. I've reviewed this game. It's amazing. It's probably my favorite civilization game. It's getting a decent amount of buzz for good reason. It's co-designed It's designed by one of the co-designers of like Recall and Revive. He actually did Escape the Curse of the Temple back in the day, Christian Asbeck.
Amazing game. Go run for this one. This one is fantastic. If you like civilization games, if you like card-driven games, if you like comboing abilities, moving up tracks, it's got all that in a super streamlined manner. And then it's Time Span. It has nothing to do with Wingspan. It's a completely different game, completely different publisher. Just happens to have the word span in it, Time Span. Well, there's my top 10 games that I've already played. Reviewed most of these on my channel, you can go check out. Run it as in for these. I hope this has helped you find help you find games that you might like. I'm the Game Boy Geek, breaking down barriers, growing leaders of industry by helping you find the next one you'll love.