This summer might be fiery but it’s not as hot as Gen Con 2025 will be. It’s almost time for gamers from all over the world to descend on Indianapolis for North America’s largest board game convention. Just like in past years, hundreds of new board games will make their debut – nearly 600 this year, an overwhelming number. Thankfully Meeple Mountain is here to help you find the gems among the coal. Our writing team has scoured through the upcoming titles to select our most anticipated games of Gen Con 2025! So without further ado, here are our picks!
Check our past recommendations and see how we did!
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Abram Towle
Gwent: The Legendary Card Game
I’ve played countless hours of The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt, which quickly became one of my favorite video games. Gwent is the dueling card game in the Witcher universe, and you spend a ton of time hunting down cards to add to your deck, crafting it into an efficient machine of melee fighters, ranged combatants, and siege engines. It’s likely that I spent more time playing the game within the game by focusing energies on Gwent, but the system is such a blast that it’s easy to get sucked in. There’s a lot of strategy involved, goading your opponent into thinking you’re going all-in on a round versus actually doing it; taking two of the three rounds makes you the victor. With five unique factions in the box with varying abilities, I’ve been hyped for this since the initial announcement.
Publisher: No Loading Games
Designer: CD Projekt
Hercules and the 12 Labors
One of the most impactful courses I took in high school was Mythology, a class where we essentially went through the entirety of Edith Hamilton’s Mythology. I developed a deep love for the stories within. Hercules and the 12 Labors is a solo game of dice and cards that takes you through the harrowing labors that Hercules performed as a penance for actions taken under a bout of temporary insanity caused by Hera. The cards are embellished with gold accents and have a striking artistic quality that hearken to classical Ancient Greece. Solo games can be a tough sell, but games like Final Girl prove that there’s a definitive market for them, and this one catches the eye enough to give it a fair shake.
Publisher: Envy Born Games
Designer: Tyler J. Brown
Lightning Train
I can count the number of times that I’ve played ‘train games’ on one hand, but it’s not for lack of interest. Lightning Train introduces bag-building aspects to route-building as players compete to deliver goods through North America. There are also lightning trains whose purpose is mysterious right now, but just by their name it seems like they could turn the tide in your favor if played at opportune moments. Designed by Paul Dennen—who delivers hits in the form of Dune: Imperium and Clank!—and published by Dire Wolf, the names alone are enough to pique my interest. Unfortunately, I couldn’t snag a seat at one of the limited demo tables at Gen Con this year, but you know I’ll be looking over someone’s shoulder to get the full scoop.
Publisher: Dire Wolf
Designer: Paul Dennen
Kevin Brantley
Dirt & Dust
I’m a huge fan of deckbuilding. I’m also into car racing—specifically Formula 1—so when I hear about another game that combines the two, I’m revving my engine. Heat brought an interesting spin with hand management, and it feels like Dirt & Dust is building on the idea of incorporating Euro mechanics into a racing game. BGG lists this as a 3.6 in complexity, so… a heavy racing game? Color me very intrigued. Bonus points for the designer diary that’s literally on the track.
Publisher: Albi
Designer: Petr Čáslava
Verdun
WWI is a historical period that doesn’t get as much coverage as it should. It was a global-scale event that marked the evolution of warfare into more violent means—tanks, chemical weapons, and more. So I’m glad to see something new set in this era. Wait a minute… this is a trick-taking game? I used to hate trick-takers, but after being forcefully exposed to many over the past year or so, I’ve actually grown to love them. A 1v1 or 2v2 trick-taking WWI game with the goal of minimizing casualties and protecting assets? That’s an odd combination of words—but I’m really hoping it can pull it off!
Publisher: Dragon Dawn Productions
Designer: Ren Multamäki
Ham Helsing
I got to check out this charming co-op game at GAMA, based on the graphic novel about a monster-hunting pig (and his friends!). It’s a mix of dudes-on-a-map, deck-building, and area defense, all cooked up into one wacky adventure. The game touts deck crafting, and gaining skill points and money lets players grow stronger—but since it’s a shared pool, I imagine there’ll be some fun arguments over who gets to upgrade their stuff. Thematically, this feels perfect for game nights leading into Halloween.
Publisher: Fireside Games
Designer: Justin De Witt
Rival Cities
I’m always on the lookout for quick 2-player games I can play with my wife. Since she’s not into head-to-head dueling games, that really narrows the selection. Rival Cities looks like a promising 2-player Euro with one of my favorite mechanics— the rondel! It’s a race to build rival cities in 16th-century Germany, and it sounds anything but dry. Sprinkle in some sudden win conditions, and it has that “let’s play again” vibe I’m always hoping for after dinner.
Publisher: Pegasus Spiele
Designer: Andreas Steding
Vantage
If you haven’t heard of Vantage by now, I applaud you—it feels like it’s completely taken over my timeline these past few weeks. I had the chance to sit down with Jamey at Geekway back in March to chat about it. It’s an open-world game packed with possibilities and a heavy emphasis on exploration. Pretty much Zelda: Breath of the Wild or No Man’s Sky in tabletop form. This is a game I plan to savor like a fine bottle of wine—small sips, appreciating the body, flavor, and aroma. It could be a modern masterpiece, one that deserves the time to explore and enjoy every corner.
Publisher: Stonemaier Games
Designer: Jamey Stegmaier
Andrew Holmes
Sanibel
Elizabeth Hargrave (Wingspan, Tussie Mussie, The Fox Experiment) is always a designer to watch, creating elegant mechanics infused with the natural world. Named after the Florida island, this game of collecting shells on the beach looks like a very pleasant and puzzly time indeed.
Publisher: Avalon Hill
Designer: Elizabeth Hargrave
Cascadia: Alpine Lakes
A sequel to one of the most successful games of recent years, Alpine Lakes looks to build on the tried-and-tested tile laying of Cascadia. Using double tiles, tile stacking and multiple scoring categories it’s billed as an experience with a bit more heft. Time will tell if the added complexity works in its favour but colour me intrigued at the moment.
Publisher: Flatout Games
Designer: Randy Flynn
Spooktacular
Level 99 Games produce some of the most unique and varied gaming experiences in the hobby, from the magical trains of Empyreal: Spells & Steam to the frantic shoot-em-up action of the Bullet series. Spooktacular combines this level of invention with accessibility, making for what looks like a fun horror game where players are movie monsters competing to cause the most havoc at a film festival.
Publisher: Level 99 Games
Designer: D. Brad Talton, Jr.
Qwirkle Flex
Qwirkle won the converted Spiel des Jahres in 2011 and is an excellent and accessible game of placing tiles to score based on matching the shapes or colours of the tiles around them. Originally designed by Susan McKinley Ross, she’s now teamed up with Reiner Knizia to release Qwirkle Flex, which appears to take the same basic system and throw in diagonal scoring and different tiles backgrounds for a third dimension of tile matching. The original game already felt fairly Knizian so it’ll be fascinating to see how this version plays.
Publisher: MindWare
Designer: Reiner Knizia and Susan McKinley Ross
A War of Whispers: Expansion of Influence
A War of Whispers is a great game of manipulating opposing forces from the shadows and hoping that your interests come out on top when the dust settles. Some plays of it, however, feel like it could be a little wilder, a little more dramatic. This first major expansion looks to add to the excitement with a new piratical faction, new actions and a more balanced starting set up. I’m looking forward to seeing if the changes add to the fun or make climbing the ladder of influence a little too chaotic.
Publisher: Tabletop Tycoon Inc.
Designer: Jeremy Stoltzfus
Ra: Traders
When a game gets its first expansion over a quarter of a century after it was originally released, you know there’s something unusual going on. And when that game is Ra, widely regarded as one of the greatest, if not the greatest, auction games of all time, you’ve got to hope that Dr Knizia has something special in mind. Traders adds a new tile type and with it a new interactive scoring opportunity, with other players potentially benefitting from you gaining a trader tile. Will it be worth the 26 year wait? Not long until we find out!
Publisher: 25th Century Games
Designer: Reiner Knizia
Will Hare
Gwent: The Legendary Card Game
I think the majority of my playtime in The Witcher III over the last decade since its release has been spent playing Gwent. There was even the time I put hours into the short-lived digital adaptation of Gwent. So when I heard there’s a whole new physical version being released with the full contents of the base game, it made me irrationally excited. Gwent is a simple but elegant two player heads up deckbuilding game, and I can’t wait to see how it translates to this new version by No Loading Games.
Publisher: No Loading Games
Designer: CD Projekt
Luthier
2023’s Distilled was a boozy, heady card game all about managing your resources and pushing your luck to become the best distillery in the business. While the world of crafting musical instruments doesn’t seem as obvious of a playground for mechanics as the world of crafting booze, Luthier looks to take some of those mechanics from Distilled and iterate on them further. Couple Dave Beck’s designs with the artwork of Vincent Dutrait and you’ve got me on board!
Publisher: Paverson Games
Designer: Dave Beck, Abe Burson
Joseph Buszek
Onoda
This is one historical subject I did not see coming to the board gaming space: recreating the experiences of Hiroo Onoda, one of the last soldiers to surrender in World War II…in 1974! That’s right, the real Onoda believed his Japanese Imperial Army had not been defeated, in spite of flyers and letters from family members telling him the war was over. He basically terrorized the local police and community of Lubang Island in the Philippines, where he was stationed, surviving on stolen fruit, rice, and livestock, until he was finally relieved of duty by his former commanding officer, 29 years after the Potsdam Declaration. It’s a wild, true story and I’m very curious to see how it translates to the tabletop.
Publisher: Salt & Pepper Games
Designer: Francisco Gradaille
Iliad
A new, 2-player, area-majority, abstract strategy game from the legendary Reiner Knizia? Count me in! His light-to-medium-weight strategy games for two are among my all-time favorites (Lost Cities and Battle Line) so I trust that it will, at the very least, have some tense interplay and tough decision-making on each turn. Plus, Bitewing Games has been killing it on the production and artwork in their recent Knizia releases, so I know it will look good on the table.
Publisher: Bitewing Games
Designer: Reiner Knizia
No Loose Ends
It’s the Golden Age of trick-taking games, folks, and this bank-heist themed title is the one that I’m looking forward to the most at Gen Con. I’m a fan of designer Taiki Shinzawa’s 9 Lives and Ghosts of Christmas, which both injected clever and original elements to the standard trick-taking formula that made them stand out in a crowded market. While No Loose Ends doesn’t appear to include the whimsical and colorful wooden pieces of those previous games, it does have art created by the incredibly talented Sai Beppu.
Publisher: GameHead
Designer: Taiki Shinzawa
Justin Bell
Tag Team
I will kick down doors to try Tag Team at Gen Con…in part, because here’s how I feel about the last five titles I’ve played or covered from Scorpion Masqué:
- Sky Team: Turbulence: excellent
- Dead Cells: The Rogue-Lite Board Game: my favorite game of 2024
- Sky Team: the second-best game I played in 2023
- Turing Machine: the best deduction game I played in 2023
- Decrypto (Five-Year Anniversary Edition): you guessed it, still great
There’s a roughly 804% chance (trust me, I did the math) that Tag Team, based purely on the publisher pedigree, is going to be great. The only question is how great. Co-designer Corentin Lebrat also co-designed Dead Cells: The Rogue-Lite Board Game as well as Faraway, which won France’s 2024 As D’Or as its game of the year.
Publisher: Scorpion Masqué
Designers: Gricha German and Corentin Lebrat
18RoyalGorge: The Rails of Fremont County and the Royal Gorge Wars
Heavier fare, particularly 18xx games, is often harder to find at Gen Con than at other conventions, so in some ways I am pleasantly surprised to see 18RoyalGorge on the dance card. Also, 18RoyalGorge looks like a train game with a small-for-18xx player count (up to four), only two corporations to begin play, a sub-three-hour playtime and some other twists to the standard formula that I’m excited to sink my teeth into. 2025 has been a lighter year for me in covering this category, so I’m excited to get games like 18RoyalGorge to the table this fall. I’m picking up a review copy of this game at the show, so a review will follow later this year.
Publisher: 18Wood
Designers: Kayla Ross and Denman Scofield
Pirates of Maracaibo: Commanders
This one’s easy: Pirates of Maracaibo was one of my top 10 games of 2024, and it is a title that I’ve already played 61 times since it arrived on Board Game Arena earlier this year. This has become my long filler of choice with strategy gamers, so I’m hoping to grab a copy of this expansion at the show. From the looks of it, Commanders is a bit of “more is more”: more cards, more things to outfit on your ship, and new personalities that expand options on each player’s turn. I don’t really care what’s in the box, because I’m so sure it will be great!
Publisher: Capstone Games
Designer: Ralph Bienert, Ryan Hendrickson, and Alexander Pfister
The Four Doors
A number of things intrigue me about this title. The first is the publisher, Happy Camper; so far, I’ve enjoyed their remake of nana (known in the US as Trio), as well as the newer title Jungo, based on an earlier game called Hachi Train. The second level of intrigue is based on the design team: Matt Leacock (Pandemic, Forbidden Island, Daybreak) seems to know a thing or two about games, and he is joined here by Ben Pinchback and Matt Riddle, two people responsible for some of the games I’ve enjoyed over the last few years, from Wasteland Express Delivery Service through last year’s Beyond the Sun update, Beyond the Horizon. I don’t know much about this game, but I am hoping to try it during Gen Con to find out for myself!
Publisher: Happy Camper
Designer: Matt Leacock, Ben Pinchback, and Matt Riddle
Phoenix New Horizon
At SPIEL 2024, two tabletop media members I trust told me that I absolutely had to try Phoenix New Horizon, so I tried to grab a review copy near the end of that show, to no avail. I’ve been intrigued since, so I was fired up to learn that Devir is distributing the game in the US. From afar, this has the look of a standard-issue Euro…which is probably why I am so excited, because it clearly is not that, based on the feedback I got from peers last year. The production looks great and those meeples pop on the table…now we just have to find out if the gameplay delivers the goods.
Publisher: Devir
Designer: Jorge J. Barroso
Ofrenda
The games of designer Orlando Sá have not always impressed me in terms of the gameplay, but they have always had a very distinct visual pop to them, most notably Neotopia and Porto. (I never played Celtae, but boy, that cover!) With Ofrenda, my hope is that the typically strong development work from the team at publisher Osprey Games (some of my favorites include Wildlands and Crescent Moon) combined with the visuals of Sá’s other titles will come together to give us a beautiful card-drafting game based on the Mexican Day of the Dead. I’m excited to meet with the team at Osprey to learn more about this one!
Publisher: Osprey Games
Designer: Orlando Sá, André Santos
Andy Matthews
The Game Makers
How can you not admire the absolute moxie of publishing a board game in which you manufacture board games—and not just faux titles, but actual hits like Wingspan, Brass: Birmingham, Terraforming Mars, Ark Nova, and more? Designer Ben Rosset and Bezier Games are partnering with some of the most well known publishers in the world to—hopefully—bring a hit to your table. Crossing my fingers that The Game Makers is actually as good as it sounds!
Publisher: Bézier Games
Designer: Ben Rosset
EGO
Reiner Knizia is one of the most well known and regarded board game designers alive. With hundreds of titles under his belt, he is the “landscape on which all other modern designers build their houses”. He’s also experiencing a renaissance with publisher Bitewing Games who are publishing a number of titles from the good Doctor. EGO is a reimagining of a 2005 Knizia title called Beowulf: The Legend, but this time set in space. Zoom through story boards, negotiate, play cards, and appreciate the gorgeous and zany artwork from Marie Bergeron.
Publisher: Bitewing Games
Designer: Reiner Knizia
Polaris
In what has to be the most gorgeous game cover this year, Polaris comes from veteran designer Simone Luciani and partner Andrea Mainini and Chilean publisher Fractal Juegos. In Polaris players attempt to form constellations in the night sky on the modular game board in order to earn points and win the game. Use clever card play and your wit in order to place and rearrange stars in the night sky to win the game.
Publisher: Fractal Juegos
Designer: Simone Luciani, Andrea Mainini
Railroad Tiles
We’ve covered the Railroad Ink titles quite a bit, but now the team behind the hit series is bringing Railroad Tiles to your table. A strategy game for 1-4, players collect and draft tiles in order to build routes in their personal tableau. Railroad Tiles features that same great gameplay without all the pesky writing and erasing.
Publisher: Horrible Guild
Designer: Hjalmar Hach, Lorenzo Silva
Tea Witches
A few years ago my family and I were captivated by Flamecraft, a cozy board game about dragons and humans existing together in a village that frankly I want to live in. This year designer Manny Vega has partnered with The Op to bring Tea Witches to life. Yet another “cozy” fantasy game, this time players are food service professionals in a magical town, each striving to show their wares and earn the favor of Celebri-Teas. It has the same amazing artwork from Sandra Tang, and the backing of The Op to make it happen!
Publisher: The Op Games
Designer: Manny Vega
Guildlands
Guildlands comes from an as yet known to me publisher Outset Media. But it’s a tile laying game with asynchronous player abilities which caught my attention immediately. Players collaboratively build a city of tiles, each with streets and symbols. Players not only have different abilities, but also different scoring and win conditions. Full marks to designers Ken Boyter, Kedric Winks for trying something new. I can’t wait to try it out!
Publisher: Outset Media
Designer: Kedric Winks, Ken Boyter
Previously Reviewed
Meeple Mountain has already reviewed a number of titles which have previously been released, or will soon be released, at Gen Con 2025. You can find links to our reviews of those games below.
