Board games with great themes
What's in a theme?
For much of the existence of modern board gaming, theme has been an oversight, a thing to be dialed in at the end, to be made to fit the mechanical underpinnings of the game. Catan (Teuber, 1995) might as well be an island, a new planet, an underwater excavation project; Carcassonne (Wrede, 2000), the Arizona desert, the French countryside, another underwater excavation project. The gameplay and the theme intersected only briefly, and while I can’t imagine Carcassonne without the rolling French countryside, it stands to reason that many versions exist of it outside of that domain. Theme and gameplay are often detached, one able to stand alone without the other.
At its best, theme enriches gameplay, providing it with context and color. It informs what you do in a game, and it guides your actions. Not every great game needs a great theme, and not every great theme has a great game it underpins.
It is one of life’s great curiosities, then, that so many great games have had cookie cutter themes that are so lifeless and drab. It’s not true of every game; for every great game with a boring theme, there’s a great game with an exciting theme. For every pastoral Agricola (Rosenberg, 2007), there’s at least one game that flips an established theme, like Spirit Island (Reuss, 2017).
But I’m not here to rag on games with themes I don’t love. I’d much rather talk to you about games with weird and unusual themes. I’d love to talk to you about the games that surprise you with weird characters, unusual landscapes, and new worlds — or maybe just games that explore themes previously unexplored that do so in novel ways.
A few games I’ve written about recently have themes that feel new and fresh, so we’ll start there.
Hot Streak (Perry, 2025) is a game about betting on mascots racing against each other. It’s a time-tested event at professional sporting events, these mascot competitions, but it’s not something about which I’ve ever seen a board game. The wackiness this game possesses at its very core is tremendous — it’s a silly game. Every bit of this game holds that silliness within itself. I love that. Bolstering the theme here is a rulebook that gives you a surprisingly lengthy biography of each of the four mascots. It’s such a great choice, and the writing just works.
Daybreak (Leacock, 2023) is a cooperative game set in the real world, and you’re working on saving civilization from destructive climate change. It’s not weird or unusual, but it certainly presents a new world, in a manner of speaking. It’s a delight of a game, with the ability to chain your improvements, gaining momentum as you progress through the game, really making the game — and, in a certain sort of way, the theme.
Sky Team (Rémond, 2023) is without a doubt my favorite two-player cooperative game. It’s basically Flight Simulator: The Board Game, but if Flight Simulator included a copilot and involved significant peril. (Which is to say, it’s not actually all that like Flight Simulator, but it definitely takes place on a plane.) How many other games about flying an airplane are there? Not many.
Trickarus (Cannon, 2024) takes the tale of Icarus flying too close to the sun and turns it into a delightful little trick-taker in which each player is trying to fly closest to the sun without their wings catching fire. The theme ties right into the gameplay neatly, and unlike so many games with Greek mythology involved, this one is tightly focused on one story. It works splendidly.
Gachapon Trick (Newman, 2025) is another trick-taker — there was an inevitability there, wasn’t there? This one is themed around collecting gachapon. You know, those blind box toys from Japan that are both exciting and infuriating. It’s equal parts trick-taking, set collection and push-your-luck, and that’s essentially what collecting those little toys in real-life entails. Except maybe trick-taking, I guess.
Cosmic Encounter (Eberle, Kittredge, Norton, Olotka and Wilson, 1977) is one of the games that really helped solidify my love of board games with its fourth edition, released in 2008. It’s not just a space theme — it’s a space theme with dozens of weird aliens with incredible superpowers. Each game of this I’ve played has been wild, and even though it’s probably been several years since I’ve taken it to the table, I suspect my next game will be, too. Is it a perfect game? Nope! I don’t think it claims to be. But it’s a game that will delight you with its theme and how that theme interacts with the game.
Five more games with incredible themes
Burgle Bros (Fowers, 2015) is a cooperative game about executing a great heist. The characters and their powers are memorable, and each game has me worried about getting caught by guards. The theme is strong here.
Fromage (O’Malley and Rosset, 2024) is a worker placement game about making and selling cheese. Cheese! There are several varieties of cheese here, too. It’s a great game, to boot.
That Time You Killed Me (Hayward, 2021) is a two-player abstract campaign game with time travel. That time travel plays very directly into how the game plays.
Let’s Go! To Japan (Wood, 2024) is a game about traveling to Japan, just like the name says. You’ll experience the country with the cards you play. Cool!
Verdant (Johnson, Melvin, Mesburne, Russ and Stankewich, 2022) has you growing and watering house plants. I love a theme that seems from the outside a bit more mundane, but there’s a certain passion involved. If you know any folks who love their house plants, you’ll get it.
Well, a short one today is what you get, as I ran out of time to make it longer. Probably for the best, really! Don’t expect an email next week, as I’ll be on vacation, though there’s always the possibility that I write something before I leave and schedule it. I guess we’ll see!
I’d love to hear what you’ve been playing lately. New releases have started to stream out a little bit after tariffs were slightly eased — now, this has still been hard financially for designers and publishers, but it’s at least been possible — but it does appear things are worsening again. While there are a ton of great games coming out this year, I am starting to wonder what things look like at the end of the year. How exhausting.
Anyway! Let’s not end on a bummer note. I hope you’re all doing well, and I hope you’re able to take some sort of summer vacation. We’ll chat soon!
I love That Time You Killed Me. I spend so much of my professional (non-gaming) life writing and talking about time travel that I really appreciate how they've embraced the theme properly!