Top 50 Games of 2025 (50-41)

It’s that time of year again for what might just be the most prestigious gaming award that can be given out by mere mortals! Welcome to the NoRerolls Top 50 Games of 2025 list; an arbitrary ranking of the games that I love.

This is a list of my personal top 50 games at this point in time.  My choices are not limited to games from this calendar year, but instead, represent my current thoughts on the top 50 games to me.  Next year, some of the games featured may move up and down as my opinions change and I get the chance to play more games or revisit old favourites.

This series will comprise 5 posts, each covering 10 games as we work down from number 50 to number 1.  

• Part 1: 50-41
• Part 2: 40-31
• Part 3: 30-21
• Part 4: 20-11
• Part 5: 10-1

This year, this section of the list has one new entry, some titles that have shimmied around within this bracket, and then a few games that were previously higher on the list. Let’s kick things off, shall we?

50: Oath

Previous Position: 42 (-8)

Year: 2021

Designer: Cole Wehrle

Publisher: Leder Games

Plays: 1-6 players in ~45 to 150 minutes

I was hoping this would be higher. I don’t regret my purchase of this game, but I’m not as happy with it as I had hoped. I can see this being really fun somewhere down the line, once we get some more familiarity with it, and a bit more automaticity. At the moment, it’s not been as big a hit with my group as I’d have hoped and I’ve not gotten it back to the table this year.

I love the idea of this not so much being a legacy game (because it’s not), but being a game about Legacy. Conceptually, I love it. I love lots of bits of the game. It just doesn’t flow as neatly as I’d have liked. I’m keen to keep on plugging away at it and hope that it comes in time. I need to make a conscious effort to get a semi-regular group on the go,

49: Dead of Winter

Previous Position: 47 (-2)

Year: 2014

Designer: Jonathan Gilmour, Isaac Vega

Publisher: Plaid Hat Games

Plays: 2-5 players in ~45 to 210 minutes

Dead of Winter is a great semi-cooperative game where players work together to meet a shared objective whilst also trying to fulfil an individual, secret objective.  The Crossroads cards, for which this series of games is named, is an event deck that triggers each turn if and when specific pre-requisites are met.  The Crossroad cards take a game that would already be great and add a random element that really works well to up the ante and create truly tense situations.  Some of the cards really screw you over, too!

I love working with others and planning out how to meet the shared objective in this game.  I do try to meet my personal, secret objective, but I always try to keep a firmer handle on the shared one.  Maybe this is why I lose so often…  Dead of Winter is tense, fun, and occasionally manic.  It can present truly difficult decisions, but also hilarious situations.  This is a game that really develops a narrative in a natural, unforced way.

The game has steadily slid down the rankings over the past few years. I’m still just a little burnt out on it; it turns you can have too much of a good thing. The game is fantastic, but you can become a bit jaded to the Crossroad mechanic over time, and there’s a lot to set up and put away. It still sees play, but it’s rarely my first choice any more.

48: Kingdom Builder

Previous Position: 50 (+2)

Year: 2011

Designer: Donald X Vaccarino

Publisher: Queen Games

Plays: 2-5 players in ~45 to 210 minutes

I bought this not long after it came out because it’s a game from Donald X. Vaccarino. That had me really pumped for the game, It was going to be great! It was not. It was disappointing. It got put back on the shelf and it stayed there for a good, long while.

Then it came off the shelf and I decided to play a few games of it before deciding whether to keep it or get rid of it. I liked it. I really liked it. The game is, like many of those that have done well in my list this year, simple. I think the problem was, as I suggested above, my own expectations. I also think my tastes have changed. Between these two factors, I’m actually a lot more positive about this game, hence re-entering the list last year and sticking around this for this year’s list.

47: Necromunda

Previous Position: New to the list

Year: 2023 (current edition core rulebook)

Designer: Unlisted (GW studio)

Publisher: Games Workshop

Plays: 2 players in ~30 to 90 minutes

Necromunda is Games Workshop’s skirmish campaign set in the toxic underhive, where gangs fight for territory, reputation, and survival. Unlike the sweeping battles of Warhammer 40,000, Necromunda thrives on the small scale: a handful of fighters, each with names, grudges, and scars that carry forward from game to game. Every scenario feels less like a match and more like a chapter in an ongoing story, where dice rolls decide not just victory but the fate of individual gangers. That narrative grit – the way mechanics and lore intertwine – is what makes it such a cult classic.

This year, it finally hit the table at our club during a tutorial night, and the experience was electric. The rules are crunchy, yes, but they reward investment with drama and tension that few other minis games can match. Watching a juve scrape through a firefight or a champion fall to a lucky shot feels mythic in its own right. With a Delaque crew waiting to be built and painted, Necromunda’s arrival at #47 is a promise of campaigns to come, shadow‑soaked stories ready to unfold in the underhive..

46: Mutant Year Zero

Previous Position: 40 (-6)

Year: 2014

Designer: Tomas Härenstam, Petter Bengtsson, Chris Birch, Anders Blixt, Thomas Johansson, Nils Karlén, Kosta Kostulas, Chris Lites

Publisher: Free League

Plays: I dunno, how big is your table? in hours to years, pal

Any book by Free League is a work of art. Mutant: Year Zero is no exception. The game itself is also really good. The underlying system that Free League designed is absolutely solid, and is a fantastic example of a nice, modern dice-pool system. It’s now been rolled out to other games like Alien, Blade Runner, Coriolis, and others.

I’ve had a lot of fun with this game over the past couple of years. My favourite bit is actually not the core system, but rather the base-building aspect, which I’ve written about previously.

My last attempt at running this did not go well. It started fine, but it just ended up drifting apart and was ultimately very unsatisfying. That disappointment might be a factor as to why it dropped quite so much, year on year, over the past few years. With the right group, I’d love to dive back into the wasteland.

45: Euphoria: Build a Better Dystopia

Previous Position: 33 (-12)

Year: 2013

Designers: Jamey Stegmaier, Alan Stone

Publisher: Stonemaier Games

Plays: 2-6 players in ~60 minutes

I backed the Kickstarter for this years ago, and it then sat on the shelf unplayed for several years until I finally broke it out shortly before the first lockdown. This is not a new story… In this case I was completely missing out. The game is fantastic. I like worker placement games, but I only actually had Lords of Waterdeep, and I was getting bored of that. Oh, I had Ankh Morpork as well, but it’s not as good as either of the other titles. Adding this game to the mix felt pretty good, and I’ve revisited it a fair bit since.

The game is a fun worker placement with some cool resource management and excellent theming. I love the theme, which sees each player try to build their own little dystopian society in the post-apocalyptic hellscape. Fun!

44: Carcassonne

Previous Position: 36 (-8)

Year: 2010

Designer: Klaus-Jürgen Wrede

Publisher: Z-Man Games

Plays: 2-5 players in ~30 to 45 minutes

I’m appreciating simpler games these days and you don’t get much simpler than Carcassonne. Yeah, Carcassonne continues to be a really cool, really simple, sedate game. I like the calmness of it. It’s one that I love playing with kids and adults; with gamers and non-gamers. It was initially going to fall off the list this year, but it had a bit of a resurgence in our house and, although falling down the rankings a little, has stayed on the list.

There’s just something nice about taking a tile and playing a tile. There’s something rewarding about seeing the map grow with each turn, taking strange twists and turns. There’s something really special about this game. I actually have a few expansions in the German big box edition that I have, but these rarely see play as I just love the purity and simplicity of the original, core game.

43: Among the Stars

Previous Position: 26 (-17)

Year: 2012

Designer: Vangelis Bagiartakis

Publisher: Artipia Games

Plays: 2-4 players for ~30 minutes

A really great drafting game, Among the Stars sees each player building a space station with their drafted tiles. These stations are all about synergy, with different tiles interacting with one another in order to generate points. it sounds pretty simple, and it is. The drafting stage is an absolute joy, as you rummage through your options, working out what works best with what you’ve already got and considering your options for the future of your station.

Visually, this game is an absolute treat, with each room being lovingly depicted in fantastic, original artwork. I’ve played this game a lot and I’m still playing around with different synergies and options. I never feel like I’m just trying to recreate the same bases over and over, but rather adapting to a fresh design each time.

Despite not getting this to the table as much as I’d like, it’s one that really sticks around for me. I love it so much and it’s one of the most enduring games that has really stuck with me since I first got into board gaming.

42: Malifaux (Third Edition)

Previous Position: 14 (-28)

Year: 2019

Designer: Matt Carter, Mason Crawford, Aaron Darland, Kyle Rowan

Publisher: Wyrd Games

Plays: 2 players in ~90 to 120 minutes

Malifaux returned to my life in 2023, and I was delighted at that. It was my Game of the Month back in February 2023 and I painted two crews for it (Leveticus and Jack Daw) in October. I then completed Tiri and Tara crews this year.

I had an absolute blast with third edition. Oh, sure, I got a bit tired of my most regular opponent setting me on fire with his Kaeris crew, but otherwise was pretty cool. The game worked. The game was engaging. The game flowed.

Don’t get me wrong; there was a lot to it. There are so many tokens and markers (I made some scheme markers, scrap/corpse markers and status tokens) and conditions and whatnot that just add up and become quite complex, but the core of the game was reasonably straightforward. What I particularly enjoy about Malifaux is the deck of cards that replaces your dice, and the ability to maintain a hand of cards. It’s such a good system for opposed duels.

The miniatures are also gorgeous. I do think that some of the new ones for third edition veered a little more towards the bland, but many of them, and many of the 2nd edition ones in particular, really stand out as special, unique, beautiful minis.

Now that 4th edition is out, we’ve seen a bit of a lull, but I daresay I’ll return to it at some point and get my head around this new edition.

41: Tiny Towns

Previous Position: 38 (-3)

Year: 2019

Designer: Peter McPherson

Publisher: AEG

Plays: 1-6 Players in ~45 to 60 minutes

Okay, bear with me on this one. Tiny Towns was once in my top 10, but now languishes in the 40a? Look, Tiny Towns is still a gem of a tabletop game. The core rules are very accessible, but they quickly give way to the satisfyingly complex experience of building your (tiny) town. It can also be thoroughly infuriating. I’m looking for a bit less fury at the moment, I suppose.

I love the player interaction that’s possible here, the variable powers provided by the different special buildings, and the replayability afforded by the different options that you have for the rules for each type of building. That’s all great.

I could see this game – our Game of the Month for August 2023 – going back up the rankings at some point, just depending on how open I am to recreational rage. 

See you next time for part 2, featuring games 40-31