We’ve previously written top co-op lists for 2019 and 2021. Now, 2023 is coming to a close. What new co-ops have appeared? How has the industry changed as we emerge from the pandemic? Let’s take a look ….
BGG: Top Ranked Co-ops
Our first look at the top co-ops has always been the ranking list at BoardGameGeek, which even seems to slowly decay over time. Two years ago, Gloomhaven (2017) and Pandemic Legacy Season One (2015) took up the top two spots, and four years ago … it was just the same. This year: well, there’s still no new co-op magic bullet, but at least our two games have swapped.
The below top-ten lists the games, their BGG rating, and how they’ve moved in the rankings.
- Pandemic Legacy: Season 1 (8.5) [+1]
- Gloomhaven (8.6) [-1]
- Gloomhaven: Jaws of the LIon (8.5)
- Spirit Island (8.4)
- Nemesis (8.3)
- Arkham Horror: The Card Game (8.1)
- The Crew: Mission Deep Sea (8.2) [new]
- Too Many Bones (8.4)
- Frosthaven (8.9) [new]
- Marvel Champions: The Card Game (8.1) [-3]
That list seems to have somewhat ossified, which speaks to either a long-term issue with ratings at BGG or else a lack of great new games in co-op field: just two new games entered the list this year, with Frosthaven (2022) being a sequel to another game previously there. But, kudos to The Crew, a rather unique cooperative trick-taking game, for its emergence. It’s not a surprise, however, given that it won the 2020 Kennerspiel SdJ. The Crew: Mission Deep Sea (2021) is actually the second The Crew game, following The Crew: The Quest for Planet Nine (2019), but it’s probably the slightly better one as its introduction of goal cards created more varied gameplay.
Scanning down the list, two other games from the ’20s almost made it, with Sleep Gods (2021) and Pandemic Legacy: Season 0 (2020) coming in at #11 and #12, but scanning further down, games from the ’20s remain scant, especially totally original games from the ’20s.
BGG: Most Owned Co-ops
As we’ve noted before, Top Ranked games can show the current hotness (or perhaps “warmness” as turn over slows down). But Most Owned is an all-time Hall of Fame. Here’s what it looked like in 2023:
- Pandemic (196,000)
- Gloomhaven (94,000) [+1]
- Forbidden Island (89,000) [-1]
- Pandemic Legacy: Season 1 (81,000)
- Hanabi (79,000)
- The Crew: The Quest for Planet 9 (75,000) [+4]
- Arkham Horror: The Card Game (73,000) [-1]
- Spirit Island (72,000) [new]
- Gloomhaven: Jaws of the Lion (70,000) [new]
- Mysterium (42,000) [-1]
What’s most impressive about this list is the continued sales of the top games. Pandemic (2008), a 15-year-old game, has now marked up 67,000 new ownerships in BGG over a four-year period, which is a 50% increase over 2019! Even older games like Forbidden Island and Hanabi are surpassing 5,000 new ownerships marked each year.
The notable addition to the list is Spirit Island (2017) while Gloomhaven (2017) and The Crew (2019) continued to climb. This knocked out the Arkham Horror 2e board game (2005) and Robinson Crusoe (2012) — two older games that feel a bit heavy for the modern market. Mind you, Gloomhaven is a game that’s similarly heavy and very expensive to boot (originally $140, upped to $180 for the upcoming second edition), so that’s definitely not a huge obstacle!
Co-op Board Games Top Games for Two Players
There are any number of top co-op game lists nowadays, some looking a lot like the BGG lists, some seeming pretty arbitrary. This year we picked out one that we thought had a unique twist: Ronny Alexander’s list of co-ops that work great for two players.
- Aeon’s End
- Spirit Island
- The Lord of the Rings: The Card Game
- Codenames Duet
- Chronicles of Crime
- Marvel Champions: The Card Game
- One Deck Dungeon
- Unlock!
- Fog of Love
- Paleo
This is a lovely list not just because it can tell you what works well for two players, but also because it’s got such a nice variety of play styles including deckbuilding (Aeon’s End), mystery (Chronicles of Crime), escape room (Unlock!), relationship (Fog of Love), and exploration (Paleo). Writing Meeples Together was challenging because there’s such a variety of cooperative gameplay. Alexander’s list really demonstrates that.
Shannon’s Most Played Co-ops
Shannon’s co-op games plays nowadays continue to be either familial or online. But a number of games have gotten some play in the last few years:
- Pathfinder Adventure Card Game (201)
- Gloomhaven (46) [new]
- The Crews (33)
- The Dresden Files Cooperative Card Game (26) [-2]
- The Pandemic Legacies (22) [-1]
- Between Two Cities (19) [-1]
- Pandemic (17) [-1]
- Dungeons & Dragons Adventure System games (15) [-1]
- Shadows over Camelot (13) [-1]
- T.I.M.E. Stories (12) [-1]
- Just One (11) [new]
- Space Alert (11) [-2]
- Hanabi (10) [-2]
- Descent: Journeys in the Dark (9) [-2]
- The Lord of the Rings (9) [-2]
- Arkham Horror 2e (8) [-2]
- Codenames (8) [-2]
- The Game (8) [-2]
- Bang! + Samurai Sword (7) [-2]
- Betrayal Legacy (7) [-2]
Some of the classics continue to trickle upward, such as Pathfinder ACG, The Crews (now combined into a single entry), Pandemic, and The D&D Adventure System games. The big new entry here is obviously Gloomhaven, which works well for online play primarily thanks to a strong implementation as an app (which of course must be combined with coordination and discussion on Discord). Its cooperative dungeon crawling is very traditional, a thread that goes all the way back to HeroQuest (1989), but its design is such a densely tactical euro that it continues to achieve strong success. Just One was the other new entry on the list and it appeared primarily because it’s a great filler on BoardGameArena, but it’s also a nice combination of a word game and cooperative play.
Looking over this list, it feels like Gloomhaven and The Crew were the last two revolutions in the cooperative field, reinventing dungeon crawl play and creating a great combo of trick-taking and cooperative, respectively. Because all of our online top-ten lists have been from the Gloomhaven/The Crew era, there’s been less change (and especially less innovation) than we might like. It leaves us asking: what’s next?