Top 3 Heavy Games at Essen Spiel 2026

0:00 What are the most exciting heavy board games being released at Essen Spiel this year in 2026? Here are the three games that I'm most excited about. First is Carl von Linné. Now, if I could condense my excitement into one single reason, it would be the action selection mechanic. Every round in this game, players will take turns placing an action lens into one of three spaces. One space will let them perform the action once, another twice, another three times, but in that one the lens will be rested for an entire round. That's all players get each round. Three action spaces, each one has to be used. And which action are you going to use three times and then rest? It's a cool problem space I want to try out. The rest of the game has some neat area movement with sailing, exploring, and research. But if I can emphasize one more thing about this game, it's the amount of detail they put into the historic context with the different player boards, the different species of animals that you're going to be learning about. It looks like an enriching experience and it's very clear they did their homework to put this together. The next game is Praga Caput Regni The number one reason I'm excited about this game is the worker placement.

1:04 This is a game with different worker types. And I've seen that before. Different worker types, usually that means each worker serves a different function or has a different specialty. But this game is far more dynamic because every time you place a worker in an action space, something about the area of the board is going to be modified to alter the effects of all of the other workers. So, one thing you can be sure of is when it comes around to your next turn, all of your workers are going to have new options available to them. The rest of the game has players building bridges, buildings, and moving their placed workers over the bridges to the buildings to perform more actions and get victory points. The last game is 60 Below. Now, to be honest with you, I'm not the biggest fan of Alexander Pfister and this game has some of that Great Western Trail, Maracaibo going on where players are using their hand of cards and the icons on it to place workers and perform the actions, but there's some things that really make this game different. First of all, you aren't just drawing a set number of cards. You can draw as many cards as you want, and they don't go into your hand, either. They get placed in a tableau because there's two types of cards.

2:07 There's expedition cards, which are generally great. You want those. And then there are storm cards, which have to be placed on your bases. The bases are printed on your player board, and they give you a bonus every turn. If you put a storm card on it, you lose the bonus, but you also save energy. And energy is great because it helps you perform the other actions you need to do in the game. So, I like this because it is a press your luck mechanic, but instead of the bad cards just being pure bad, they can actually be beneficial depending on your circumstances. So, those are the three heavy games that I'm most excited about. To read my notes on my Essen Spiel wish list, you can check out my shelfie at the perfectboardgame.com or the link in the description.