We've played so many incredible Tabletop games this year, from amazing wargaming releases to board games and tabletop RPG's that kept us coming back to the table again and again. Now it's time to take stock of the year and pick our favorites -- a truly daunting task.
Here's our list of this year's nominees for best Tabletop Game of 2022:
- CY_BORG RPG (Our Preview)
- The Essence20 RPG System (Our Reviews of G.I. Joe, Power Rangers, and Transformers RPG's using Essence20)
- Jurassic World: Legacy of Isla Nublar (Our Preview)
- Kill Team: Into The Dark Box Set (Our Preview)
- Spelljammer: Adventures in Space (Our Review)
Check out here for our other award categories and nominees.
Reader's Choice Winner - The Essence20 RPG System
The Essence20 system is a brand new RPG system from Renegade Game Studios, and - as you can see above - is the core set of rules upon which runs the G.I. Joe, Power Rangers, and Transformers RPGs. With a streamlined ruleset that balances tactical play with big, outlandish storytelling, our readers were just as charmed by Essence20 as we were this year. Now all we have to do is wait for the forthcoming My Little Pony RPG set in this same system, and we can finally have the battles across time, space, and friendship we've always wanted!
Third Place - Kill Team: Into The Dark Box Set
Kill Team is, without a doubt, one of our favorite wargames. And with the release of Into the Dark, the Warhammer 40,000 skirmish game we know and love gets a breath of fresh air with the introduction of close quarter fighting and two incredible new Kill Teams, the Imperial Navy Breachers and Kroot Farstalker Kinbands, as well as enough Gallowdark Space Hulk scenery to fill a board. From the sheer value of the products included in this box set to the way it innovates on the game, this was one of our favorite Tabletop releases of the year.
Second Place - Jurassic World: Legacy of Isla Nublar
Legacy games may be on their way out of the zeitgeist in the Tabletop world (or maybe not, this might be a trend with staying power), but no board game excited us this year quite like Jurassic World: Legacy of Isla Nublar. A cooperative board game taking players through the events of every Jurassic Park film in the franchise (albeit with plenty of divergences as you play the game and win or lose each scenario), we were hooked from the moment we opened the box and saw the 1950s pulp comic book look of the graphic design. With tons of characters to choose from, dinosaurs to unlock, and lots of ways to upgrade the board, this is one of those rare legacy games we actually finished, and an all around joy from start to finish.
Winner - CY_BORG
From Free League, the makers of the MÖRK BORG, comes the gleefully anarcho-psychotic cyberpunk tabletop RPG you didn't know you needed in your life, CY_BORG. But what makes this gritty game our best of the year? Well, to quote our writer William in his Preview of the game, "...already, I’m calling this my favorite TTRPG of the past 15 years. I've not enjoyed a game like this since Shadowrun 2nd Edition. No other game in recent memory manages to achieve this level of world-building, and to do it all in a way that felt as pleasant as if you were reading a novel rather than a rulebook is astounding. To cap it all off, the rules are only as a complex as they need to be to facilitate the gameplay, and the so-called ‘golden rule’ of RPGs (that rules are made to be broken) is so clearly at the forefront of the designers mind."
Have a tip, or want to point out something we missed? Leave a Comment or e-mail us at tips@techraptor.net
Giaco Furino joined the TechRaptor team as a Staff Writer in 2019 after searching for a dedicated place to write and talk about Tabletop Games. In 2020, he… More about Giaco