Co-op board games are memory-forming. There’s nothing quite like sitting around the table with your family, or your closest friends, to work together to defeat monsters, solve puzzles, escape rooms, or even bring the One Ring to Mordor.
These board games send you on grand adventures, while also teaching you the value of practical skills like team work and good communication. No matter your age, you can have a blast playing through co-op tabletop experiences, and leave with ample lessons learned.
If you’re looking for new experiences for your crew, or you’re just keen to get started in the world of tabletop gaming, he’s a few of ScreenHub‘s picks for the best co-op board games you can enjoy with family and friends, any time.
Best co-op board games – ScreenHub‘s top picks
Mansions of Madness
Players: 1-5
Mansions of Madness is an app-driven adventure board game where players must work together to solve a mystery, defeat a creature, or otherwise explore various spooky, haunted locations to investigate strange circumstances. While you can play this game solo, it works fantastically as a co-op experience, with multiple players working together to survive horrors of all sorts. There’s twists and turns with each story included in this game (and its expansions) and you’ll be kept on the hook as each new reveal arrives.
Horrified
Players: 1-5
Horrified is a very well-designed co-op adventure board game with layers of baked-in strategy that encourage deep thinking and careful moves. Here, you and your friends play as experts trying to take down the Universal Monsters (Dracula, The Wolf Man, The Invisible Man, The Creature from the Black Lagoon, Frankenstein, and The Bride) as they terrorise a local town.
Travelling around each board location, players will figure out when and how to target specific monsters, then use their special character abilities to take them down for good. You’ll want to pay attention and work together to ensure your town doesn’t devolve into madness. See? Board games can teach you very important life skills.
Pandemic
Players: 2-4
Pandemic might evoke memories of a bad time, but it really is a fantastic board game to play with friends. Working across a world map, you and your fellow players will need to collaborate efficiently and strategically to prevent an emerging pandemic. Each player embodies a disease specialist, and their roles are to research a pandemic outbreak, target the source of the spread, and eventually work towards a cure for everyone.
Robinson Crusoe
Players: 1-4
Robinson Crusoe is one of the best co-op board games to play with friends, thanks to a very strong theme, and mechanics that allow for deep exploration and experimentation. No two runs through this particular game are the same, and there’s so much variation in your travels.
Here, you and your friends play as adventurers charting a distant island. To survive, you’ll need to discover items, craft, and travel widely. You’ll also need to work alongside your companions to make sure nobody is left behind.
Chronicles of Crime
Players: 1-4
Chronicles of Crime is another nifty app-driven board games experience, with the action focussed on investigating crime scenes for evidence and suspects. Players will work together (although you can also play this game solo) to interrogate a range of mysteries, then strategise together, to arrive at a final conclusion. As well as a base game that focusses on realistic crimes, this particular title also has spin-off board games attached, and expansions following a variety of strange and fantastical crimes.
Magic: The Gathering – Archenemy
Players: 4+
This might be a left-field pick – it doesn’t quite fit with the other board games on this list – but playing Magic: The Gathering in its co-op Archenemy format is a blast. Here, rather than everyone fending for themselves, players will team up in a group of three or more, to face off against one player – the Archenemy. This format transforms MTG into a co-op experience where everyone must work together to unleash spells against an all-powerful opponent, who has a deck of game-changing cards to prevent damage, wipe board games, and get the last laugh.
You’d expect that three-against-one would be unfair, but the additional deck makes this format a real challenge, and really shakes up the power dynamics. You can learn more about how Archenemy works on the MTG website.
Sherlock Holmes: Consulting Detective
Players: 1-8
The Sherlock Holmes: Consulting Detective franchise comprises multiple boxes filled with mysteries to solve, all inspired by the classic Arthur Conan Doyle books. In each box, you’ll find seemingly random bits of paraphernalia, all with a joining thread. It’s up to you and your friends to figure out the connections, as you slowly unravel each mystery, one clue at a time.
As with other board games on this list, Sherlock Holmes: Consulting Detective can be played solo – but when there’s so many clues to solve, and they could all do with deep discussion and analysis, it’s great to work with a larger group.
Vagrantsong
Players: 2-4
Vagrantsong is a co-op adventure board game where you and your friends play as vagrants trapped on a ghost train, at the mercy of creepy ghouls. Lost and alone on the train, everyone must work together to get through various challenges, strategising about when to explore, when to search for and use items, and when to attempt to free a ghostly Haint from their soul shackles. Beyond moreish gameplay, what’s most enjoyable about Vagrantsong is its lush art style, which borrows from classic cartoons and modern horror stories.
Escape the Dark Castle
Players: 1-4
Escape the Dark Castle is a horror adventure game that tasks players with escaping a dark, monster-filled castle by rolling dice. Work together, players will tackle an array of challenges, revealed with each new card flip. To survive, everyone will need to unleash the special abilities of their characters, and also use any found items very strategically. While this game does depend heavily on luck, you’ll have the best chance of escaping the castle if you all work together, to maximise your chances at a group win. If you do survive, you’ll have bragging rights at your next board games night.
The Fellowship of the Ring: Trick-Taking Game
Players: 1-4
The Fellowship of the Ring: Trick-Taking Game is a light-hearted adaptation of the Lord of the Rings story that sees each player picking a character, and setting off to complete their individual quest. Across multiple chapters, players work towards their goals by competing in trick-taking games, where they must play high cards in set suits – a bit like bridge (or at least, I’m told).
While this game is more about strategy and competitiveness, the layers of story over the top make it a more co-operative game, and encourages players to collaborate on wins, while moving the plot forward. On the surface, this adventure appears easy – but there’s ample satisfaction in taking your time, and figuring out the best strategy to advance as a group.
Betrayal at House on the Hill
Players: 3-6
Betrayal at House on the Hill is a horror-themed adventure game where players work together to explore a haunted mansion filled with all sorts of oddities. As you explore, a sense of danger grows, as with each new discovery in the house, you have the potential to initiate a horrifying situation, known as a ‘Haunt.’
When this happens, players who were previously working together suddenly turn on each other, and turn evil. It adds spice and flavour to this co-op board games experience, as while you might be friends with with one or more of your fellow players in-game, that friendship could be destroyed with the flip of a single tile.
