2023 looks like a very good year for tabletop games. The board, card, and tabletop roleplaying spaces are all stacked with excellent content coming out in the next 12 months. So much so that players may find themselves spoiled for choices.
On the roleplaying side of things, the traditional launch at Gen Con for major titles has become less relevant in recent years. Games now usually come out when they’re ready. Essen Spiel remains very relevant for fans of board games, and major releases are often titled for the legendary game fair. Complex tabletop games look to continue their resurgence in 2023.
10 Star Wars The Deckbuilding Game Replaces An Underappreciated Classic
The partnership between Disney and Fantasy Flight Games has produced some amazing tabletop games. X-Wing and Star Wars Armada are legendary and even if Imperial Assault and Rebellion haven’t hit on the same level, they have more than their share of fans.
Star Wars: The Deckbuilding Game follows in the footsteps of the canceled Star Wars: Destiny game. Without the dice of Destiny, the deckbuilding system should create a much more streamlined experience. Star Wars: The Deckbuilding Game should excite and delight fans of the franchise.
9 Kids On Bikes 2nd Edition Explores Strange Things
The popular and critically acclaimed Kids On Bikes is a roleplaying game set in the world of 1980s kids' adventure movies like E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial and throwback TV series Stranger Things. The second edition is scheduled to release this year.
Centering on weird mysteries and child agency in a world before cell phones, the first edition of Kids On Bikes was released in 2018 with wild popularity. The puzzle-based gameplay of this collaborative worldbuilding RPG brought on fantasy and sci-fi follow-ups Kids on Brooms and Teens in Space.
8 Magic The Gathering: Dominaria Remastered Goes Back To The Past
The 30th Anniversary of Magic: The Gathering went well but not without its controversies, including previously unreprinted cards reprinted for a special anniversary edition. The 2023 Dominaria Remastered set looks to reissue classic cards with all-new artwork.
With an exciting lineup of some of the most well-remembered cards in the early years of the game, Dominaria Remastered released on January 13 with strong reviews. The Commander reprints in the set will make it much less expensive to build a Commander deck, as many of these cards have become very rare and difficult to find in recent years.
7 Slay The Spire: The Board Game Takes Video Mechanics To The Board
Combining the gameplay modes of a deck builder and a roguelike, Slay the Spire became a huge hit when it came out in 2017 in early access, and it only got more popular in its full release in 2019. With easy-to-access online play and difficult mastery, the game became a gripping puzzle for many.
Slay the Spire: The Board Game comes out just in time for the Christmas holiday, scheduled for an early December 2023 delivery date. Raising $3.9 million, its Kickstarter reached one of the more rarely entered strata of the platform.
6 Monty Python’s Cocurricular Mediaeval Reenactment Program Is Far Too Silly
One of the biggest surprises of 2022 was the long-awaited Monty Python-themed fantasy roleplaying game Monty Python’s Cocurricular Mediaeval Reenactment Program. The classic surrealist comedy has been inspiring roleplaying games since the 1975 film released just a year after Dungeons & Dragons’ first three-book set.
With a mocking tone and a Kickstarter preorder package full of physical props to set the tone, Monty Python is set for an October 2023 release. Its Kickstarter raised over $1.9 million, one of the strongest ever for a roleplaying game.
5 The Elder Scrolls: Betrayal of the Second Era Ties In With The Popular MMORPG The Elder Scrolls Online
A tabletop adventure board game based on the popular Elder Scrolls video games. Promising lavish illustrations, the game is coming to the game-focused crowdfunding site Gamefound in Spring 2023. Taking place during the same Second Era period as the popular Elder Scrolls Online MMORPG, the game crosses the entire continent of Tamriel.
Originally set for a September 2022 release on Gamefound, the timeline has slipped to March 2023. Plymouth, MN-based publisher Chip Theory Games promises a release of this exciting game before the end of 2023.
4 Mother Tree Reaches For The Skies
A new game designed by Elizabeth Hargreave, the designer of the celebrated bird-themed board game Wingspan, Mother Tree is a similarly wildlife-themed game. Similar to how her previous game celebrated birdwatching, the new game will celebrate the forest.
With few details coming out as yet about Mother Tree, gamers can nevertheless understand that like Hargreave’s previous game, it will be lavishly illustrated and feature innovative, cooperative gameplay with some big surprises. Wingspan won the prestigious 2019 Kennerspiel des Jahres award, giving Mother Tree a lot to live up to.
3 Gloomhaven: The Roleplaying Game Interacts With The Board Game
The popular adventure board game Gloomhaven has a setting tailor-made for tabletop roleplaying. With deep lore, storylines spanning entire continents, and a continuing storyline beyond each session’s 60 to 120-minute length, the game has a lot of depth.
The Gloomhaven RPG uses a custom system that is cross-compatible with the board game releases, allowing players to zoom in to their characters and then zoom out to the overall world. The game promises a release in April 2023, along with new miniatures for both the RPG and board games.
2 Cyberpunk 2077: Gangs of Night City Features Flash And Substance
The future is grungy, dismal, and dangerous. CD Projekt RED and R. Talsorian Games co-production Cyberpunk 2077, a spinoff of the seminal tabletop RPG Cyberpunk 2020 and its sequel, Cyberpunk RED, revels in every minute of it.
The board game spinoff Gangs of Night City is a territorial conquest game in which street gangs vie for control of the eponymous city. With the opposition of other gangs and the cops and corps, the game brings the neon-soaked, dangerous world of Cyberpunk into a board game format for the first time.
1 Old Gods of Appalachia Go Where No One Should
Kickstarted in early 2022, this tabletop RPG bills itself as a game facing the dangers of the Green, the Dark, and things even more ancient. It’s based on the popular eldritch horror fiction podcast of the same name. Old Gods of Appalachia applies legendary designer Monte Cook’s Cypher System to approach a world where the Appalachians were never meant to be inhabited.
Exploring the unknowable hunger and madness that have slumbered between the eastern mountains of the United States since time immemorial, this game goes where no one should have. The debut hardcover of the roleplaying game is slated for a May 2023 release.