Top 10 New Hottest & Most Popular Board Games Right Now May 2026

0:00 Let's look at the hottest board games right now. First of all, we will figure out how they are played and then we will rank them. How much do we want to play these?

0:08 And we will rank them correctly. Not this way, but this way cuz this definitely

0:13 How do you know? Well, we actually know cuz we made a hot presentation. So, without a further ado, we have to talk about the 10 hottest board game and the reasons. Why are you standing like that? No, we just need to talk about the 10 hottest board game. Just that 10 hottest board game is Habitat, which is quite a light board game. Complexly just 2.7 and it's quite quick. But most importantly, look at that beautiful cover. So, in this game, you will pick up tiles and create your habitat. I knew that one. And you will also have your little jeep. In this case, you can pick up one of these tiles that are next to your Jeep and then your Jeep will drive in that direction. So that's why you would need a Jeep. That's why we would need a Jeep to collect these tiles

1:05 for whatever reason. The cool part is whenever your Jeep moves somewhere, you actually afterwards place a tile in the space you just moved from. So these tiles are ever changing. Why do you need these tiles? Why do you need to have these jeep truck to get the most victory points? Well, yes, to build your little habitat. For example, this tile will give you points because it says so. And this animal will give you points if it's next to these type of tiles and so on. So, you build your little ecosystem. And well, that's kind of it except well, there's also other scorings based on the seasons and rounds and so on. Drive your Jeep, get some habitats and animals and build your own ecosystem.

1:50 Simple enough. Get points. Why it's so hot, mister? It's on board game arena. Now you can actually play a digital version of it on board game arena. So everybody's playing it. Everybody's tagging it. Everybody's looking at it. It's hot.

2:01 Trust me.

2:02 How much do we want to play it?

2:04 Let's figure that one out. We know it's good, right? We know that's pretty good. It's not maybe spectacular, but it's light, simple, looks good. I mean, I feel like I've seen all the things happening there in other games. I mean, it's a good package, but maybe not as exciting as the other games coming up. Trust me, next game is quite exciting. Number nine on the hotness list is a game that hasn't come out yet, but it is based on a game that has come out. First, let us tell you about the game

2:35 that has come out.

2:36 That has come out, and then we'll talk about this,

2:38 which I really love.

2:39 Let's go. In this Euro game, you are a corporation that has come to terraform Mars, Mars, Mars, Mars, Mars. Obviously, like anything in life, you do that to score the most victory points. The game is driven by this huge pile of cards. Each player will get a hand of cards and the players will be drafting those cards to play later. Whenever you play a card, you have to pay for it with your own money and then adjust resources accordingly. For example, here you have to pay electricity to get some heat. Makes sense, right? Cuz it's the hottest board games video. Woo. So, by building up your own industry, you will be able to terraform Mars and grow forest there or build even big cities. This is mine.

3:34 See? And you keep doing that, building up Mars until the temperature rises, until all oceans are made and hopefully you get tons of victory points. So, what is the biggest difference between Terapform Mars and Legacy of Mars?

3:49 This has not come out yet.

3:51 It Okay, second biggest difference. Good. Good. You're paying attention. Second biggest difference is that it's a campaign game. Why am I using air quotes, not space quotes? Never mind. This is uh getting cringy awkward. we will be getting these missions that we'll be completing each time we play. And those missions will give us specific rules, new components, and some things to add to our campaign sheet. So, essentially, we're going through a campaign. But for me, it feels like those are just four expansions stuck inside this box cuz you can reset it easily. There's nothing that, you know, make uh changes. So, definitely not a legacy. Yeah, it's more like just Mars. I first heard of this like three years ago or something. First rumors of this and I was super hyped. I thought this is such a good idea. Now, what do you think? Ter from Mars is one of your top 10 games of all time, right? I've played this twice many years ago. So, I'm my excitement for this is zero. So, if you ask me, I'd put it here.

4:52 All the way here.

4:53 Okay. No, no, no, no.

4:55 But you're more objective in this case.

4:57 We'll take the easy way out, which means there are these habits, right? I would rather try Legacy of Mars than uh Habits. Let's move on to again a little simpler games. This one is called The Secret Valley and is not that complex again and pretty quick

5:13 and not that secret since everybody knows about it right now.

5:16 And it's also in 2021.

5:18 Why do you have old games? Shouldn't it be like the hottest list? What is this?

5:22 It is because there's a new version coming out, but I'll tell you about it a little bit later. But in general, this is a communal tableau building game. Well, that means tableau you play cards on the table and communal means that well, everybody is playing are playing those cards together and creating a single like ecosystem. What do you do? It's similarly to tering Mars. You draft cards. You have these cards. Then you take one of these cards and pass the rest of them to other players. And hopefully at the end of the game, you will have a handful of good cards cuz you're a professional, right? You draft well. Then there's the second phase where you actually take those cards and play on the table and place your little chips on these cards so everybody knows that that's your card. Okay, I drafted it. It's mine.

6:13 We got it. We got it. Your chip is there. We got it. And you will score points based on those cards. Whatever they saved, they might get points for if they're next to something or next to something else and so on.

6:24 Not next to something or something else.

6:26 Yeah, exactly.

6:27 Got it.

6:27 So, they all will have their own counting ways. Why it's hot right now? Because it actually was only available in Spanish in Argentina.

6:37 Okay.

6:37 Uh and now there's like a worldwide release in English, The Secret Valley. And people have told good things about it. So, this seems like similar to habitats. Just pick a something and play a something somewhere to score something, right? That's good description. Which one you'd rather play? The Valley or Habitats?

6:55 Habitat looks better, I think.

6:57 Problem solved. It goes here.

6:59 The next game is especially hot because it's a sequel to your number one game of all time, which is World Order. And the game that was number one is Hegemany. Same designers, same artist, same company. But is the game plays the same?

7:16 Same. Same.

7:16 Let's take a look. Welcome to the world order. Raise your flag and try to collect the most victory points. Each faction is asymmetric. You will get your own deck of cards that you will play to complete different actions. For example, you can make friends with new countries or new friends with old countries or, you know,

7:36 friends.

7:37 Friends. You could improve your military presence in the region. You could produce some resources or develop some growth cards. And most importantly, you are fighting for influence in each region to score the most victory points. And you can push out other players from these regions, making it very spicy. So, you will play these cards. You will get new cards, all with the goal of trying to control as many regions as you can. Is that fun? Let's go rank it. So, this is my favorite board game of all time. Was last year for sure. It's my baby. I love this game. And this is the new edition. Yeah, kind of a sequel, but not really. Do we like it? How excited are we to play it again? Well, it's quite different. We have played it quite a lot of times already, and it's not the same. Yeah. So, if you're going into this like Hijgemony 2.0, you'll be disappointed. If you're looking for something unique and different, you might really like it. But we're not too excited to get back into it just yet. Yes, let's let's let's go there. All right. Number six on our hotness list is spooky towers, which are very spooky because ghosts have uh come to light, have escaped from where and we have to capture them. They were captured in the tower. There's a whole story. It really doesn't matter because it's actually a super light, simple, quick ball game that's very highly. That's the whole premise. You will have these ghosts and you have to capture them.

9:05 Here are the ghosts that you have to capture. And the only way how to capture them is obviously go all the Ghostbusters.

9:12 Yeah, that or roll two dice and then flip some cards.

9:16 Oh, okay. I didn't know that part. I thought you there's the only way to call the Ghostbusters.

9:20 So, on your turn, you will roll dice and based on what you just rolled, you will be able to either take a card or flip over a card. Simple enough. If you rolled one and six, you can either pick a one, a six, or the sum of it, seven. So quite simple.

9:35 Six or seven.

9:36 Yeah, you had to do that. Whenever you pick a card, well, then you have the other option. If you roll the same numbers, you can flip these piles.

9:44 Oh, just like it says on the screen.

9:46 Yeah. So, if you roll these, you can either flip the sum of both of those dice or just the one. And on the other sides of these cards, why you want to flip them can be, I think, ghosts or these flashlights, which will reveal some ghost toy. Super simple. Collect five of these cute little ghosties. You will win the game. So, it's a little kids game that's not very highly rated. How excited are you to play it? That necessarily doesn't mean it's bad. I mean, Flip Seven, I really love it. It's not highly rated game, but I love it. But yeah, let's go here. You could just ranked it and we could would have moved on. No,

10:24 I just needed to give some backstory. Number five on the hottest games list is Compania, which is heavier than yours, which is always uh the case. It's longer as well, and it's up to six players, and it's much better rated. I think you can flip those two numbers uh together, and that's regrating of your previous game. This game is cool in that manner because it is designed and drawn by the same person. So, in this game, you are running your company. You'll be placing some dice to use actions on the board and then playing some cards. Okay, simple enough.

11:00 Yeah.

11:01 The really cool part is how you select the actions. So, you will have a certain amount of dice and your total number for those dice can be five, for example.

11:11 So, I can have five dice.

11:12 Total sum of those dice.

11:14 I roll a one and a two. So, that's a sum of three.

11:16 Okay, here's the cool thing. You don't roll. You just pick what you want the dice to show. But the total can be five. So you could go one here, one here, and three here.

11:26 Makes sense?

11:27 And then you will place cubes on the board equal to the sum of the dice you chose. See, I chose this action right here. That is the action here. I chose action here. I place two cubes here. Okay? And if you have the most amount of cubes, which you do here, you get to do the action. Simple. And here's the plot twist. Everyone does it at the same time secretly,

11:48 so you don't know what everyone else is picking. But don't worry if you didn't get to do the action like this little yellow fellow here didn't do, he gets to leave his cube there for the next round.

11:57 Okay.

11:58 Okay.

11:58 So, let me get this straight. You have this shield which protects the information or the dice the actions you select and then you place these dice

12:08 on the board, right? And you pick what numbers you choose. Just the sum is five

12:14 for for at the start. Yeah, you can improve that later on.

12:17 And then once everybody reveals their things, they place those dice here.

12:21 Yeah, essentially. And then if you have the most than anybody else, you get to do the action. Quite unique, wouldn't you say?

12:26 Very unique. Okay.

12:27 And then those actions will give you resources that you move forward and you will spend those resources to build cards which will give you

12:36 victory points.

12:36 No, money. But money is victory points. This game is in hotness right now because it was kickstarted and people are starting to get their copies.

12:44 Yeah. The only question now is which board game will keep company. Nice. Uh I really like the idea of uh these hidden like dice selection where you don't roll them. Just place anything you want. That seems very unique. I haven't played anything like that. So I'd place it actually here.

12:59 Maybe here.

12:59 Maybe there.

13:00 Okay, let's do that. Wait. Legacy moves up.

13:03 Legacy moves up.

13:04 I'm not sure how I feel about that. Well, I feel fine. So that's good. Let's move on to the fourth hottest board game. And this is a biggie. This is a complexity rating of 3.13.

13:17 That's biggie for you. That's not Biggie.

13:18 That is not Biggie.

13:20 Look at this croc.

13:22 He's a biggie.

13:23 He's a biggie. Okay. Okay. Okay. You got me.

13:24 Point taken, huh? This is quite a heavy Euro game about a swamp and you sailing on that swamp. Excited.

13:32 Yes. Who's FA? Fya is the whatever name of the swamp. This comes from the authors of Gaia Project. This massive heavy euro game in space and Terrammystica, this massive Euro game in fantasy world where you inhabit the world and terraform it and it's huge and epic.

13:54 Exactly. And after these cool themes now and the new game where you fish in this game, as I said, you will be able to have your little ships and then fish. Does Does Fya know we're in her swamp?

14:09 Yeah.

14:10 I don't know. Who knows? Why do you ask these questions?

14:13 I need to know who Fya is.

14:14 Okay.

14:14 One of the really cool parts is that you start with an absolutely empty board. There's nothing here. And then slowly, one by one, you add these tiles, you add ships, you add fishies, everything kind of like pops up based on your

14:29 similar to their previous games.

14:31 Yeah. Yeah. Very similar. And all of that happens based on your you placing your little workers on these action spaces. If you place a worker for example here, well, you can do this uh action for example here. Fishy fishy simple action selection worker placement game. All that generally you do is well you sail with your ships then you fish some fishies and then you sell these fishies. And what's cool is you can sell to well other players.

15:04 Other players get points, you get money, money, money.

15:08 Interesting.

15:09 So where would you rank this?

15:11 Move everything down and here.

15:14 Here.

15:14 Yes.

15:15 Here.

15:15 No. Here.

15:16 Here.

15:17 Move everything down here.

15:18 Move everything down and here.

15:20 Yes.

15:20 I thought of that. Not him.

15:22 Yes.

15:22 Next time you make a board game, explain whose swamp it is. Okay.

15:26 Please, everybody.

15:27 Please.

15:28 Yeah. Let's figure out if the next

15:29 It's not a joke.

15:30 This is serious.

15:31 It's very serious. Let's figure out if the next game will tell whose swamp it is.

15:37 We're down to three hottest board games this month. And number three is not so hot because there's a lot of shade there or whatever shade you know. And we actually have that game here in the studio and we're going to show you. By the way, Mr. Ans just recently changed his Crocs here in the studio and I was wondering why. The previous ones were pretty okay. And now I know why. His soul is like double the amount it was before. What do you mean?

16:04 So you mean looks even taller.

16:06 I'm not compensating anything.

16:08 Give me one of your crocs. Give me like look at those. That's half of it.

16:15 Let me put those back on.

16:16 Anyways, let's talk about Lands of Evershade.

16:19 Create your hero and go on an amazing adventure in this unique land of Evershade. Lands of Evershade is a storyheavy board game. Imagine Dungeons and Dragons, but the game master is this book. You will have your adventures on this map of the current area. You will meet people, you will have encounters, and sometimes you will zoom in into these combats where you have to defeat the big baddy. This game has a very robust character creation and upgrading system. Yes, you can get tons of items during the story and just change and make your character better. He's more charismatic now. Just like this fella. Look at him. Beautiful. Hello. In my opinion, what makes this game so great are just the choices.

17:08 Whenever you get to a paragraph, it will ask you very tough questions, and the choices feel like they matter. To summarize, you will go on adventure, create your character, roll some dice, make some important choices, and have a lot of fun. Well, we're going to rank it, right? Let's do it. So, we love this game. We love this game a lot. We love the prototype. We have the final version in our hands, like we saw. We've played it already. There's probably going to be a review.

17:37 We've played it already like 20 hours or so.

17:40 That's That's I'm just

17:42 not not even It's It's way ahead of all the other games. It's Well, that have come out and what we played, but uh it's a fantastic experience. From that high note, let's move on to the second hottest board game, which I think also is going to be great. It's Rolling Deeps. It's a board game that, well, hasn't come out just yet and will be quite complex.

18:06 Okay. And

18:08 solo only,

18:10 huh?

18:11 The solo board game. And why I'm so excited is because it's a rogue light, which means you go into dungeons, try to get as far as possible, hopefully destroy the bad guy, and call yourself victorious. But if not, you die and restart everything.

18:28 A anyways, and also what's really cool is that during the game, if you succeed at certain points and maybe get to the end of the first chapter, you get new cards and upgrade your decks and get better and better and better. But this game has one of the most interesting mechanisms I've heard of lately. Let's see how it works. This game has upgradable dice. So, it's not deck building, it's dice building, not bag building or anything. You actually customize your dice. Then you roll them and based on your rolls, you will be able to move uh in the dungeon. And that's super exciting. And also the artwork is cool. It promises this everchanging dungeons and challenges and cards and everything. I like rogue like games. Rogue light games.

19:15 Rogue light or rogike? Cuz those are two different genres.

19:18 Let's talk about it. Okay.

19:20 Okay. Let's do

19:21 But before we solve that dilemma, just the art style is epic, is different. There's a Batro style solo rogue. Like that's super difficult. keywords are just

19:31 Valatro is this uh video game where you're kind of playing poker but you're creating your custom crazy cards.

19:36 In this case, it's going to be crazy looking dice and yes, you will be able to upgrade uh your cards, buy different like potions, buy new dice sides and so on. So, get better with time, which sounds bloody fantastic. And yes, the most important question, do you know, mister, the difference between rogue like and rogue lights? Cuz it turns out those are two different things. So, I think Rogue Light, the first one is where you die, you recite everything, and that's just uh you replay everything. You don't get to keep anything. But Rogue Light, you maybe get to keep something. Well, I thought so too before, but actually Rogue Light are games based on this old video game called Rogue, where you went into the dungeon. Trust me, this is a dungeon.

20:20 Okay. Okay. And you try to beat bosses, and if you die, you die. So rogue likes is everything in a dungeon and you reset everything and uh it's turnbased. Those are the prerequisites for it. And rogue like are games that break any of these three settings. So it's not in a dungeon and it's not turnbased from all of these.

20:41 Yeah, it's here. Number two.

20:43 Yeah, it's super exciting

20:45 and we like different games, unique games, something that surprises us and dice building. Haven't seen that before really.

20:51 I have seen in two other games. Yeah, but still lot to like. I hope indeed. Number one, the hottest of the hot or games of the month. What is it? It's Terraria the board game. All right, it is 120 to 180 question

21:11 to my question mark. So, the biggest biggest by far thing that people have been saying it's impossible to finish that game. So, I put down the time that they say, but put to question marks cuz it doesn't seem like it is true. It is quite heavy. You can play it solo up to four players cooperatively. So, what actually is Terraria, the board game, and obviously we know it's a board game. It's because it's based on this video game where you will craft little things, go into dungeons to get resources, fight monsters, so you can craft more things. Then in the board game, you will build different things, go into dungeon to get items and resources to build more things. Seems uh pretty um truthful. I mean

21:55 that seems like a lot.

21:57 It does take a lot of table space. When you get those resources, you can create items with those resources and those resources will give you better actions. What I mean by that is that this is a deck builder where you will play cards to do actions. So, for example, with this item, I can spend one of my green bubbles to do one of this action. This game was Kickstarter.

22:20 Mhm.

22:21 And it collected a whooping 1.6 lb sterling, which is a lot. I think if you put an IP on a game these days, it's going to earn a lot of money. Yeah.

22:31 So, why is this game in hotness, you ask? Here we go. There is a very interesting review by no pun in You're going to do that again. Okay. Of course, you're going to do that. by Mr. Efka from No Pun included review where he outlines why this game like it says here is bad. Have you seen that review?

22:52 I haven't known, brother.

22:53 I haven't either, but go ahead, watch it and let us know. Do you agree with him or not? How about let's move on to how excited are we to play this? Let's figure it out.

23:03 Is it weird that I want to play it more now? It is weird, but I get why Minecraft is one of your, if not the favorite video game, right? So, crafting genre and we recently talked about Valhane, which is also a crafting like a board game.

23:17 So, feels like this is right up your alley.

23:20 Here or here for me. What about you?

23:22 You do. You go cuz these both are your games.

23:24 Okay. Well, this should be better. It looks like like bad. Uh, but I think this should be like a better game. And this is just personally I like some challenges.

23:34 Mr. Saves the is behind the camera. Why?

23:37 I think he's glitching out. He's glitching out. It's been

23:40 It's been a long day.

23:41 It's been a long day. Anyway, so these are the games that we're excited to play. And in this order, these are the hottest games this month. Which of these have you tried to play? Do you agree with our ranking? And is Terraria really that bad? And should he play it?

23:54 Yeah, let's figure all of those questions out. And while we do that, please support the channel because we make these videos every single month. It takes a lot of time, effort, and we love doing it. And the only way we can continue is if you send a little bit of money.