Welcome to The Best Games of 2019! Over the next 195 pages discover all of the most positively reviewed games of the year. We’ve included our Must Play, Yes, and Probably games from the last twelve months of reviews and bundled them together so you can easily look back on what made 2019 special. What’s more, it’ll be easy to decide on what to play next using this, our guide to the 181 best games of the year!
We had some odd themes emerging this year, generally all in good, wholesome spirits. The runaway success of beautiful bird-pleasing engine-builder, Wingspan, shows us that there’s no excuse not to have an impossibly good looking game that offers brain-burner fun. There’s building a society in Villagers, the deceptively simple port colour matching joys of Copenhagen, and the blooming of the desert in Ishtar – all of which leave you with the feeling of the world being a slightly better place when you get up from the table. Hopefully that’s how we all feel about tabletop gaming as we exit 2019.