Although it's a niche and relatively expensive hobby, board gaming has gained quite a bit of traction in the past few years, as companies have tried their hand at capitalizing on the popularity of tabletop RPGs and uniquely in-depth board game systems. Some of the more popular examples of this trend include the Dark Souls board game, which accrued quite a bit of funding through Steamforged's Kickstarter campaign, and Betrayal at House on the Hill created by Wizards of the Coast to appeal to a more horror-centric audience than their typical fantasy settings.
The horror genre seems to have grown quite a bit from this trend, considering the difficulty of translating tension from a visual-based setting to a slower-paced tabletop one. Alongside the ever-growing library of homebrew Dungeons & Dragons scenarios, there have also been dozens of attempts at capturing a haunting atmosphere through other mixtures of cards, boards, and dice, several of which have been hugely popular with a hungry audience looking for new experiences with their friends.
Updated April 30, 2022 by Jack Pursey: Like many indoor hobbies, the board gaming industry spiked in popularity when lockdowns were enforced worldwide due to the pandemic. Many people have retained the hobby going into 2022 but are still overwhelmed by the huge range of choices when searching for games to play.
To give horror fans a better idea of what board game to buy next, we've updated this list of horror board games to include useful information, such as each game's playing time and player count.
10 Betrayal At House On The Hill
- Player Count: 3-6
- Playing Time: 60 minutes
- Average Rating on BoardGameGeek.com: 7.1
- Complexity Rating on BoardGameGeek.com: 2.39
- Beat Feature: It's endlessly replayable
Perhaps the most popular horror board game of all time, Wizards of the Coast's Betrayal at House on the Hill is an absolute pleasure for anyone with a remote interest in the genre.
Betrayal is one of those games that might be hard to pick up and go with the family, but after a couple of sessions, it all becomes worth the trouble. Players will find themselves immersed in the procedural nature of the mansion, as every room could contain a game-changing secret, and every turn piles more and more tension onto the inevitable arrival of a Lovecraftian terror. The base game contains enough content to last players hundreds of games, if not more, and a handful of expansion packs are also available to add layers to the mansion and its inhabitants.
9 Bloodborne: The Board Game
- Player Count: 1-4
- Playing Time: 60 minutes
- Average Rating on BoardGameGeek.com: 8.0
- Complexity Rating on BoardGameGeek.com: 2.94
- Beat Feature: The Bloodborne theme is well executed and makes it a must-buy for fans of the RPG and board games
Soon after the release of the Dark Souls board game adaptation, Bloodborne followed suit, proving itself a worthy successor after receiving higher ratings from fans. Players take control of a handful of Hunters, who must work together through the duration of the game to uncover the secrets of the town of Yharnam.
The game features a unique approach to combat, using a card-based system to deploy various weapons and maneuvers. After organizing their stats, players will set out to explore the streets of Yharnam, pulling cards to traverse the environment to discover new equipment and randomized events that keep the story going.
8 Eldritch Horror
- Player Count: 1-8
- Playing Time: 180 minutes
- Average Rating on BoardGameGeek.com: 7.8
- Complexity Rating on BoardGameGeek.com: 3.32
- Beat Feature: Excellent, gripping storytelling that makes the lengthy playing time fly by
Taking a fairly direct approach to the Lovecraftian style of horror storytelling, Eldritch Horror has players teaming up on a global expedition in order to uncover horrific mysteries and keep an ancient terror at bay, with the fate of the world on the line. The game features several different Ancient Ones that drive the story along, each with their own deck of corresponding event cards that layout their respective lore and clues as to how to prevent their arrival.
The global travel system means there's quite a lot to experience here, with every location hosting its own miniature encounters, each of which can have devastating consequences on failure. Each sub-scenario can make or break the party by the endgame, as broken bones and otherworldly pacts can be hefty inconveniences in the battle against the Ancient Ones.
7 Horrified
- Player Count: 1-5
- Playing Time: 60 minutes
- Average Rating on BoardGameGeek.com: 7.8
- Complexity Rating on BoardGameGeek.com: 2.04
- Beat Feature: It's the easiest game to learn and teach to friends on this list
This entry appeases more to the fans of classical horror than anything, playing out almost like an episode of Scooby-Doo meets Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein.
The interesting part of this approach is that all the monsters are on the board from the start, meaning Dracula and Frankenstein's Monster and a motley crew of others will be working in unison to chase the players. To make this system more interesting, all of these monsters act differently on the board, and every player must use their turns strategically to successfully avoid and eventually defeat them.
6 Cthulhu: Death May Die
- Player Count: 1-5
- Playing Time: 120 minutes
- Average Rating on BoardGameGeek.com: 8.1
- Complexity Rating on BoardGameGeek.com: 2.40
- Beat Feature: The wonderfully well-crafted miniatures
Another Lovecraft-themed piece, Cthulhu: Death May Die is a much more oppositional take on the genre than Eldritch Horror, in which players are attempting to summon the Elder Gods in order to destroy them once and for all, instead of preventing their arrival outright. This means a more tense gameplay loop, as players begin the game insane, and progress through it with make-or-break dice rolls that may be edged into the latter by a character's mental status.
The game is segmented into an episodic format, occurring before and after the Elder One is summoned. Death May Die is stunningly arranged, with multiple story boxes, a variety of characters, and gorgeously crafted miniatures to boot.
5 The Thing: Infection At Outpost 31
- Player Count: 4-8
- Playing Time: 90 minutes
- Average Rating on BoardGameGeek.com: 7.3
- Complexity Rating on BoardGameGeek.com: 2.35
- Beat Feature: The social deduction theme makes it great fun to play with friends
Before Among Us, there was The Thing, and before The Thing, there were board games. Mondo's release of The Thing: Infection at Outpost 31 is a seamless combination of every one of these pieces, combining the group-based fun of alien betrayal with the actual film's setting on a beautifully detailed board with miniatures.
The game plays out exactly like the film, with players taking control of NSF researchers in the middle of the Antarctic as their base is overrun by a hostile extraterrestrial life form.
4 Alien: The Roleplaying Game
- Player Count: 1+
- Playing Time: Various
- Average Rating on BoardGameGeek.com: N/A
- Complexity Rating on BoardGameGeek.com: N/A
- Beat Feature: The Cinematic Play scenarios are fantastic for fans of the film franchise
This is the official adaptation of the film universe into a tabletop format, and it adapts it well. The Alien RPG, set a few years after the events of Alien 3, provides ample set-pieces to craft a believable story in the cinematic universe. With rising political tension surrounding Weyland-Yutani, and opportunities for gameplay in several various colonies, space stations, and ships, the scope of the Alien RPG is vast, to say the least.
The core game pack comes with a fully illustrated setting book, quick rule overviews, and two versions of the game to accommodate any party. Cinematic Play presents tense pre-made scenarios akin to those of the films, designed to be played in one sitting with a small group, and Campaign Play allows for a more free-reign look at the universe, akin to homebrew D&D campaigns.
3 Mansions Of Madness (Second Edition)
- Player Count: 1-5
- Playing Time: 120 minutes
- Average Rating on BoardGameGeek.com: 8.0
- Complexity Rating on BoardGameGeek.com: 2.67
- Beat Feature: It does an excellent job of streamlining the gameplay from the first edition, most notably through the help of the tie-in app
Taking place in the same universe as Eldritch Horror, Mansions of Madness is another cooperative puzzle board game, this time leading players through a smaller-scale adventure taking place in the town of Arkham.
This app-assisted experience guides players through several distinct scenarios, each with unique maps, puzzles, and encounters. The first edition got middling reviews for some clunky gameplay decisions, but the second edition completely overhauls these problems and makes the game a much smoother experience, replacing the traditional game master position with an app and randomizing more aspects of the game.
2 Nemesis
- Player Count: 1-5
- Playing Time: 120 minutes
- Average Rating on BoardGameGeek.com: 8.4
- Complexity Rating on BoardGameGeek.com: 3.39
- Beat Feature: The alien miniatures look fantastic and justify the game's hefty price tag
Much like Alien, Nemesis introduces its players to a survival-horror thrillfest in which characters must work together to escape a ship overrun by hostile alien organisms. Each character has different traits that allow them to be more or less useful in various circumstances, and the players are set on a tense time track as the creatures grow stronger over time.
Nemesis prides itself on being a tense, climactic game, and the player base agrees in its satisfaction with those promises. Expensive as it may be, hundreds of reviews recommend it as more than worth the price, and it's hard to argue with the intricately crafted design.
1 Dread
- Player Count: 1+
- Playing Time: Various
- Average Rating on BoardGameGeek.com: N/A
- Complexity Rating on BoardGameGeek.com: N/A
- Beat Feature: The use of Jenga as a mechanic is ingenious and makes for some extremely tense moments
Dread may be one of the best roleplaying games of all time, with its innovative systems for building tension and establishing horror without explicit imagery or even a fixed setting.
Winner of several awards upon release, Dread is a horror RPG that implements a Jenga tower into its gameplay loop, providing players with more tense consequences than just numbers on a sheet, as they must pull blocks from the tower throughout the game and risk death. The game can be played in a variety of one-shot horror settings, generally citing Beneath A Full Moon and Beneath the Mask as good representations of a gameplay loop.