A couple of weeks ago, we announced our nominees for our 13th Annual Board Game Awards. As always, it was rough even choosing which games to nominate. Since then, we’ve put our heads together, tested the games, and come up with a consensus.
Today, we are excited to announce the winners of our 2025 Board Game Awards. As usual, the voting was difficult, and some categories were extremely tight. But our editorial staff (with input from our readers) has made their selections. So, without further ado, here are the winners of our 13th Annual Board Game Quest Awards. Congratulations to all the winners and nominees.
2025 Board Game Award Winners
Best Cooperative Game
Vantage
Designer: Jamey Stegmaier
Stonemaier Games
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Vantage is the kind of game that people love because it just clicks in all the right ways. It’s easy to get into, but there’s enough strategy to keep you thinking and coming back for more, which makes it great for both casual players and veteran gamers alike. Every time you play, it unfolds a little differently, and the world to explore is massive. Games can be anywhere from 30 minutes to 3 hours, depending on how much you explore and what choices you make. Vantage is as fun as it is unique and deserves a place on the shelf of cooperative game fans.
Runner Up: Arydia the Paths We Dare Tread
Most Innovative Board Game
Baseball Card GM
Designers: Matthew & Garrett Weaver
Weaver Media Group, LLC
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Baseball Card GM is one of those games that instantly feels fresh because it turns something people already love—baseball cards—into a fully playable, stats-driven experience. Instead of using custom decks or abstract systems, it lets you build a team from your own cards and actually play a game of baseball using the stats printed on them. It’s quick, engaging, and accessible, making it just as fun for families as it is for serious baseball fans, and that unique blend of innovation and nostalgia makes it a standout game.
Runner Up: Light Speed Arena
Best Production Values
Elder Scrolls: Betrayal of the Second Era
Designers: Josh J. Carlson, Michael Gernes, Logan Giannini, Ryan Howard, Salem Scott, Josh Wielgus
Chip Theory Games
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Publisher Chip Theory Games is no stranger to making high-quality titles. Their signature poker chip component drives most of their games, but they also pack the boxes full of dice, PVC cards, neoprene mats, storage trays, and excellent art. Basically, everything a dedicated gamer wants for their collection. The Elder Scrolls’ box is filled to the brim with trays of dice, chips, tons of races, classes, and cards waiting to be explored. There were no corners cut here, and it shows.
Runner Up: Hot Streak
Best Thematic Game
Moon Colony Bloodbath
Designer: Donald X. Vaccarino
Rio Grande Games
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Moon Colony Bloodbath is one of those games that immediately grabs your attention because it flips the usual “build something great” idea on its head. Instead, you’re building a moon colony that you know is going to eventually fall apart. What makes it so fun is the push-and-pull between growing your engine and watching it slowly (or sometimes not so slowly) unravel as disasters pile up, thanks to a shared deck full of both helpful actions and brutal events. It’s chaotic in the best way, as you watch your hard-worked creations get destroyed by fighting colonists or killer robots.
Runner Up: Spooktacular
Best Card Game
Citizens of the Spark
Designers: Philip duBarry
Thunderworks Games
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Citizens of the Spark has you collecting various animal citizens, each of which has its own power. But the more you get, the more powerful they combo. But what makes it especially engaging, though, is the shared turn structure—when someone activates a citizen, everyone else can jump in and follow, so you’re never just sitting around waiting for your turn. Add in the huge variety from mixing different animal types in each game, and it keeps every play feeling fresh and full of new possibilities.
Runner Up: Moon Colony Bloodbath
Best Strategy/Euro Game
Star Trek: Captain’s Chair
Designer: Nigel Buckle, Dávid Turczi
Wizkids Games
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Star Trek: Captain’s Chair built on the Turczi and Buckle system from the Imperium line of games. What’s especially cool is how each captain plays completely differently, so whether you’re leading like Picard, Sisko, or Burnham, you’re basically learning a new strategy every time you play. The game is all about managing your crew, ships, and missions while trying to outthink your opponent in a very tight, head-to-head duel that feels tense but still thematic. And it does all of this while still being true to Star Trek’s focus on diplomacy and exploration. It’s the kind of game that rewards learning and replaying as the various strategies run incredibly deep.
Runner Up: Galactic Cruise
Best Game from a Small Publisher
Galactic Cruise
Designers: T.K. King, Dennis Northcott, Koltin Thompson
Kinson Key Games
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In Galactic Cruise, players build interstellar cruise ships, plan interesting itineraries, seek out customers with diverse travel tastes, gather together necessary supplies, and then try to launch more cruises than their rival executives, all while in a race to achieve three corporate assignments that get harder the longer you wait to fulfill them. With chunky meeples and oozing with space-age theme, Galactic Cruise is the heavy game your midweight friends might just love too.
Runner Up: Eternal Decks
Best Two Player Game
Star Wars: Battle of Hoth
Designers: Richard Borg, Adrien Martinot
Days of Wonder
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Star Wars: Battle of Hoth is one of those games that instantly pulls you in because it lets you relive one of the most iconic moments in The Empire Strikes Back as a fast, head-to-head showdown. One player commands the massive Imperial forces, while the other scrambles to defend Echo Base with Rebel troops and snowspeeders. The gameplay is quick and approachable, using the award-winning Memoir 44 system as its core. The game can either be played as one-offs or as a short campaign with new cards rewarded after each battle
Runner Up: Toy Battle
Best Solo Game
Star Trek: Captain’s Chair
Designer: Nigel Buckle, Dávid Turczi
Wizkids Games
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We had a lot of great solo options this year, but our Best Euro Game standout, Star Trek Captain’s Chair, also stands at the top of the crowd for an amazing solo experience. The game gives different difficulty level options as you race against an automated opponent. So if you aren’t ready to get a beat down from a deck of cards, you can play on cadet mode to get your feet wet with any of the games unique captains. With expansions already planned for this year, you should expect to see this one on gamers’ tables quite often.
Runner Up: Corps of Discovery
Best Reprint/ Reimplementation
Magical Athlete
Designers: Richard Garfield, Takashi Ishida
CMYK Games
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Magical Athlete is one of those board games that’s pure, chaotic fun, but in the best possible way. You’re drafting a team of absurdly powerful racers—each with completely wild abilities—and then watching them compete in short races where anything can happen. The real joy comes from the unpredictability: one race might feel competitive and strategic, and the next might devolve into total nonsense with characters bending or breaking the rules in unexpected ways. It’s fast to learn, easy to teach, and has a fantastic “schoolhouse rock meets LSD” art style.
Runner Up: Deckers
Best Casual Game
Hot Streak
Designers: Jon Perry
CMYK Games
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Much like Magical Athlete, Hot Streak is a racing game with a wacky premise. However, instead of controlling a goofy racer, you are a degenerate gambler betting on the outcome of racing mascots. Is the giant Hot Dog* going to pull off that upset, earning you some sweet coin? Or will he be overtaken by the giant Fish that just fell down a few turns ago? Hot Streak leans into its mascot racing theme as it’s wacky and unpredictable, yet gives players just the tiniest illusion of control to make them think they have an edge on other players.
* Yes, we know that technically it’s a “Bun Banger” not a Hot Dog, don’t @ us.
Runner Up: Magical Athlete
Game of the Year
Elder Scrolls: Betrayal of the Second Era
Designers: Josh J. Carlson, Michael Gernes, Logan Giannini, Ryan Howard, Salem Scott, Josh Wielgus
Chip Theory Games
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The Elder Scrolls: Betrayal of the Second Era tops our awards because it manages to bring the scale, freedom, and adventure of the video game into a deeply satisfying tabletop experience. It blends open-world exploration with tight tactical combat, letting players build unique characters, develop powerful abilities, and follow the narrative of their chosen story arc. What really sets it apart is how big it feels without becoming overwhelming—you’re constantly discovering new locations, quests, and threats, but the systems stay intuitive enough that the story never gets lost in the rules. You don’t have to be a fan of the Elder Scrolls world to enjoy Betrayal of the Second Era, as its engaging gameplay and storylines can rope in just about any gamer.
Runner Up: Vantage
Note: Per award rules, because it won Game of the Year, Elder Scrolls: Betrayal of the Second Era was removed from consideration from other award categories (except Best Production Values).
