10 Hottest Board Games Of The YEAR (Surprises Guaranteed) - momenTEN

0:00 This month, our momentum shifts into high gear as we count down the hottest board games of the entire year. If you think you know all the games that are going to be on our list, well, you might be surprised. These are not necessarily the biggest games released this year, but you will find the hottest tabletop treats of 2025 in this special edition of Moment.

0:27 Hey, I'm Chaz Marlor and our year-end countdown of 2025's hottest games kicks off with Vantage. The cooperative adventure set in an open world of endless discovery. Vantage entices explorers with an entire planet to uncover, discover, and sometimes duck for cover in. From scattered beginnings, players must communicate to connect with one another across a world composed of hundreds and hundreds of cards. Players have near complete freedom on how they explore, discover, and interact with the planet. And as the name of the game suggests, players can only see their current location, their vantage point. So while they can communicate with their teammates, they must do so separated by a virtual vast distance. Vantage offers a truly unique experience in the tabletop gaming world with hours of epic exploration and a world waiting to be discovered from the comfort of our own our own home planet. Also in the furthest reaches of space lurks Crang the Conqueror, one of the adversaries that you'll face in the game that helped make this episode possible. Unmatched Adventures Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, the latest cooperative team up from Restoration Games. The heroes in a half shell, Leonardo, Raphael, Donatello, and Michelangelo join forces once again against the sinister Shredder, Crang, and their minions. But allies such as Splinter, and April O'Neal are here to

1:57 support you. But also, watch out for BBop, Rock Steady, Leatherhead, and their medalsome minions. Unmatched Adventures takes the core gameplay from the Unmatched series and turns it on its head into a cooperative fight against superpowered villains. If the villain completes their objective or defeats the heroes, well, then the players lose. But emerge victorious and then it's off to the sewers for a muchdeserved pizza party. Unmatched Adventures: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles is available right now. So follow the link in this video's description to find it locally on the Restoration Games website and other totally radical retailers. Careening around the corner into the ninth hottest spot of the entire year is Heat Pedal to the Metal, the hand management deck building racing game where players jockey for position while desperately trying not to overheat their engines burning out while burning rubber. The game's tunnel vision expansion, which released earlier this year, certainly helped to keep heat in pole position, introducing two new tracks for players to traverse. The Spanish Grand Prix follows treacherous tunnels, forcing racers to trust their instincts in low-light conditions. And the Netherlands track allows competitors to really open up their engines to full throttle. The designers of Heat have stated that if there's enough desire from players, well, then they have ideas for at least six big expansions for Heat. And hey, based on the game's performance this past year, I think it's

3:29 safe to say that we're going to see Heat around the band once again sometime. real soon. But for now, the next game that blasts it off this year is Galactic Cruise, a galaxyized Euro where competing interplanetary luxury liners take to the stars to offer the very best experience to spacebound vacationers. But masterminding interplanetary itineraries is going to be tough work and requires building ships to meet guests requirements, enhancing your company's network, growing your workforce, and even inventing new technologies. And all this galactic grandeur is powered by worker placement to acquire your blueprints, construct your ships, attract your guests, build developments, and gain those precious, precious points. Galactic Cruise not only blasted off on Kickstarter for a second time in 2025 with a reprint that added an achievements expansion, but it also debuted a digital adaption on Board Game Arena, providing two more examples of just how Galactic Cruise spent this last year reaching for the stars.

4:35 Wandering onto our year-end list in spot number seven is the pandemic powered the Lord of the Rings Fate of the Fellowship where the Fabled Fellowship, their friends, and their [clears throat] foes all set off on their legendary journeys to either save Middle Earth or cause its doom. A successful quest requires collaboration, and to assist this, each player controls two characters to aid and protect Frodo as he makes his way to Mount Doom for some well-earned additional strife and turmoil. But before that, there are battles to fight, enemies to evade, and the ever watchful gaze of Sauron to avoid. And while the game is powered by the classic pandemic engine, Fate of the Fellowship adds more than just a little theme and flavor, creating a totally unique experience that's packed with huge Nasgal minis, a heap of different objectives, a second heap of events, and 13 playable characters. And while Sam, Mary, and Pippen work to keep Froto spirits up, another Fellowship of Spirits inhabits the sixth hottest game of the year, that being Spirit Island, which was originally published back in 2017, but is still standing tall 8 years later.

5:48 Set in a world where magic instills the spirits of the land, sky, and every natural thing in between, Spirit Island begins as uninvited colonists make landfall on the island's shores. And now the natural spirits must fight back. Each playable character has its own unique elemental powers that are used simultaneously, creating powerful combinations of actions to fight off these invaders. As the game escalates, well, the spirits must too, as they spread their presence to repel the encroaching colonizers. Spirit Island is one of the most popular board games of recent memory with not only a dozen promos, add-ons, and expansions, but also an introductory version called Horizons of Spirit Island that was released in 2022. Now, over 2 years since the most recent official content was released for the game, it is still hitting tables worldwide and sporting an active online player community. And another oldie but goodie rounds out the spot number five in this year's countdown. That is the year end. He said completely backwards. Another oldie but goodie rounds out the year in spot number five. This one being 2018's Brass Birmingham. This is currently the number one ranked game on Board Game Geek, an economics powerhouse of competing entrepreneurs during the industrial revolution. The twist here is that games of Brass Birmingham are split into two distinct eras. The canal era and the rail era. Which is your favorite era?

7:21 Sound off in the comments below. To win, players must first develop canals for transport, but then must tactically pivot as trains become available, as trains are want to do. And another factor that helped to propel Brass Birmingham up the charts this year was the announcement of a new sequel, Brass Pittsburgh, which is scheduled to be released in 2026. And this version allows players to reexperience the explosive late 19th century industrial boom, also known as America's Gilded Age, as Vanderbilt, Carnegie, Rockefeller, and Henry Ford all ruthlessly build their own sprawling networks of railways, pipelines, steel mills, and oil refineries. Plus, the game's limited preliminary description that I was provided with also promises quote unquote more. So, we have that to look forward to as well. And speaking of more, if you'd like even more fun board game videos such as perhaps this one that you're watching right now, well then check out the series Lost in the Shuffle on the Game Night Pick channel where me, Paula, Matthew, and friends explore offbeat tabletop topics, play games about games, dig into gaming experiences, make recommendations, and of course, even more. Because if you think about it, providing less than what exists naturally would actually be mathematically impossible. Technically, any thing at all is more. Even nothing else would still provide the same amount that there already is. So yeah, find the

8:53 absolute bare minimum of what qualifies as additional content by following the link in this video's description to join us for Lost in the Shuffle. And as I understand it, more Another game that players have kept in tune with this year is Harmonies, where lavish landscapes are built by drafting and hopefully cleverly placing tokens to create the habitats that different scoring animal cards desire. Tiers of tokens are continually crafted while animal cards are potentially drafted, meaning that creating specific wellscoring combinations while also staying open to evolving opportunities are both crucial elements for victory. Did that rhyme? Harmonies has not only been one of the most talked about games of the year, but it it's also one of 2025's bestselling ones as well. So, it makes sense why this game ends the year in spot number four. Its approachable, charming, and strategic nature have all helped to elevate it into a position as a potential modern-day classic that keeps on striking a chord and chiming in whenever board games are mentioned. And ironically, the animal games keep coming two by two as we find the third hottest game of the year being Ark Nova. Here, competing conservatories plan and design a modern, scientifically managed zoo, one with lots of blinking buttons and motionpowered soap dispensers. Of

10:24 course, any winning managerie management mega corp must include enclosures, accommodate animals, and support conservation projects all over the world, which players do through careful card play and contract management. There's a couple of things that are purposefully propelling ArchNova's popularity. First is the literarily. It's not about books because it's actually the literally huge upcoming. Would it be figurative? How would this be figuratively huge? It's big is what it is. It's a big upcoming deluxe 3D edition of Ark Nova, which replaces the game's cardboard tiles and buildings with three-dimensional plastic components. Then there's also the launch of Ark Nova's first official sequel, Sanctuary, which modifies and simplifies many of the mechanisms of the original game, where the goal becomes finding the best way to puzzle together the animals, buildings, and projects in a brand new but familiar zoo making experience. All these factors have worked together this year to help make this game of animal arrangement go supernova.

11:36 Raising the curve now is Arcs, the card-driven sci-fi strategy game that describes itself as being set in a dark yet lightigh-hearted universe. Apparently, one where alien super destroyers may be coming to conquer your planets, but they will announce their arrival with various whimsical novelty car horns. So, that helps. In Arcs, both diplomats and commanders v for dominance through battle and by gathering scarce resources through some good old-fashioned intrigue. Game play is powered by a deck of cards in four different suits and is based loosely on a trick- taking system, which not only dictates the actions to be taken, but also how points will be scored round to round. Boosting the sustained popularity of Arcs is its digital implementation, which is developed by prolific board game coders Direwolf, who previously have worked on the digital versions of Root, Sagrada, and Dune Imperium, to name a few. The online version of Arcs is due out and in sometime in the future, not today, but hopefully hopefully in 2026. As a result, there's been continuing interest in this already popular game, making it no surprise that Ark's own arc isn't over just yet. And finally, setting. In the top spot this year is SETI, where the search for extraterrestrial intelligence continues on with players leading scientific institutions exploring nearby planets

13:08 and moons, deciding whether to land on their surfaces or to collect valuable samples. Along the way, these savvy scientists scan for alien signals, discover exoplanets, and gain precious data to study back home. SEI has certainly settled into the limelight this year and boosting its bravado is the announcement of its very first expansion space agencies which introduces powerful asymmetrical organizations each with unique abilities making them asymmetrical. Yes, that's how that works. They also have strategic advantages and starting conditions that redefine how players approach the search for alien life. The expansion also adds over 40 new project cards inspired by realworld initiatives, quick start cards, three new alien species, each with their own unique twists, and reportedly more.

14:03 And if you're looking for even more games to discover, well, then continue on to our most recent board game buyers guide video, which shares dozens of brand new retail releases and restocks for you to discover. You can click here to join us over there. And thanks for watching.