I’ve always been an extremely competitive person, someone who hates losing but loves the thrill of trying to achieve victory over your opponent. This competitive edge has bled into, and is perhaps a reason for, my love of tabletop games.
Whether its back and forth battles for victory points through skilful gameplay in some big Euro game, or trying to eliminate and destroy other players in something like a Thunder Road: Vendetta, I’ve always loved competition.
But despite all this, potentially my favourite kind of board game is a cooperative one. Yes the competitor in me will always be simmering away, but deep down some of my favourite experiences in board games has been working together with a fellow player or team to achieve the best victory of them all, one over the game itself.
Co-op games, when done well, can bring a sense of togetherness. It drives interaction and forming plans to win, and allows people who may not be as familiar with the hobby to still partake in a game without feeling lost or clueless with a games mechanics, as they can be led and taught by someone more familiar with the game.
I encourage even the most competitive among you to try out a quality co-op game. After all, you can still get that win, just one shared with your friends and family.
So with teamwork exuding out of me and with Valentines Day just gone by, what better time than to talk about 5 Amazing Cooperative Board games.
Sky Team
Kicking off this cooperative extravaganza is quite possibly my favourite game of all time, and not just co-op game, Sky Team.
An absolute staple of my wife and I’s board game sessions, I have waxed lyrical about Scorpion Masque’s two player co-op phenomenon many times in these blogs, and for good reason.
In it, you and your partner play pilot and co-pilot, looking to land a plane against various challenges and difficulties at different airports around the world. Whether its navigating other planes in the air, your speed as you prepare to land or even your fuel reserves, Sky Team offers up an immersive and challenging experience that can be done in 15 minutes, or if you get addicted like we always do, in several hours as you try and try again to complete its various challenges.
The crux of the game comes in the fact that while pilot and co-pilot are working together to land their plane, they are unable to communicate to each other during rounds. You both roll 4 dice, and decide silently where to put these dice to perform the various functions on your aircraft.
You might have your own individual things you need to look after, but ultimately you need to silently engage one another and work together, intangibly building up this quiet cohesiveness that really builds as you play it more and more.
It is a 10 out of 10, no notes game. Perfect for Valentines Day with your other half, where you can really see how in sync you are (no pressure then), Sky Team tests the limits of your cooperation like no game I have played before, a masterclass in making a very simple game stand out as one of the best of all time against its meatier brethren.
Best of all, you can also get the Turbulence expansion if you feel like adding some more challenges to your Sky Team sessions!
2. The A.R.T Project
The next entry on my co-op list is a game which I don’t think gets enough love in the tabletop community, The A.R.T Project, released in 2023 and designed by Florian Sirieix and Benoit Turpin.
A game that I won with a dice roll at the Board Game Expo and knew next to nothing about, has become another cracking co-operative experience in my collection of games.
You play together as part of an art rescuing team against a criminal organization known as The White Hand, a group of thieves infamous for stealing famous artworks throughout the world.
Playing on different boards representing various countries across the globe, you and your team all work together to best foil The White Hands plans. You have to very carefully manage finite resources, including guns, fuel, clues and most importantly health to achieve your mission.
Every resource and action held are universal, and affects every one round the table. You need to carefully plan every move to best complete the goal of the game, rescuing 7 artworks around the board before any single character loses all their health.
Lots of games have similar mechanics to The A.R.T Project, and perhaps there are stronger examples of co-op games out there, but I really think it’s a bit of a hidden gem. A game which I knew nothing about and with a theme that generally doesn’t engage me as much as fantasy or sci fi settings, quickly turned me into a fan with its difficulty and its puzzle like formula that you need to solve.
Every map plays differently, the order you draw cards makes every game different. You can increase or decrease the difficulty level as you play to make it as challenging or as breezy as your tastes desires. It shares its DNA with playing a video game and trying to tick off the various achievements to complete all the maps first on easy maybe, and then increase the challenge as you get more and more familiar with it.
Lots of fun, easy to teach and scales well, with a challenge I thoroughly enjoyed even in defeat, The A.R.T Project is a brilliant co-op game any tabletop fan shouldn’t sleep on.
3. Spirit Island
While The A.R.T Project might be a tricky challenge every now and then, if you’re looking for a full on Soulslike, oh my God how are you suppose to beat this game kind of difficulty from your co-op board game, may I present to you Spirit Island.
This smash hit 2017 game is not for the feint of heart, nor for the feint of I don’t like too many rules. Don’t think that sentence makes sense.
Spirit Island is a big box board game where you and up to 3 other players play as Godlike spirits, trying to ward off colonizing forces bringing blight to your beautiful island. Each spirit plays differently, with unique abilities as well as varying skillsets so one spirit may be amazing at creating fear among the colonizers, but another’s strength lies in its ability to defend the island and its original inhabitants the Dahan.
It is one of the most complex games I have played and my first couple of games I did find almost overwhelming. There are lots of different rules, with asymmetric powers making it quite challenging to learn the game as a group and discuss strategy. We ended up losing quite easily, and I found myself a little disappointed.
But I persevered in every playthrough since it feels like I am learning more and more about the game, and that overwhelming feeling is almost one of the key facets to Spirit Island, working within its complex theme of colonization and cooperation.
I have loved it as a two player co-op game with my wife if we’re fancying a greater challenge that evening, as well as with a larger group of 3-4 players and a more encompassing mission for us all to work together to succeed.
If you don’t like rules heavy games then my above two co-op picks will be more your style, especially if you like a lighter challenge and don’t like the feeling of playing a game for potentially 3-4 hours only to lose rather unceremoniously.
But if you’re up for a challenge, I urge you to check out Spirit Island. It’s a gorgeous game with stunning artwork and a theme that feels risky but is beautifully captured by the incredible visuals. And if like me you just like roleplaying as a vengeful giant lighting spirt bird, then it’s a must have addition to your board game collection.
4. Horrified
I am not breaking any new ground by telling you that Horrified is one of the best co-op games of all time, but there can’t be a list of amazing cooperative board games without it on there.
You and your team are working together in a village to stop various monsters and creatures of legend running havoc. In the original Horrified Universal Monsters, you can go head to head with Dracula, Wolfman and even Frankenstein’s Monster, as you work as a team to form your strategy to defeat the great evil.
Each creature is defeated differently, such as Dracula needing to have his graveyards destroyed or Wolfman with a cure that you conjure, and along the way you can save villagers as well by transporting them to their desired locations for a little boon to help you in your quest.
But the Monsters don’t just idly stand by and let themselves get defeated. At the end of each of your turns you draw a card which dictates the actions some of the creatures might take that turn, and oh the game can swing massively with the pull of a card.
It’s this dynamic that makes Horrified just so much fun to play. You could be walking your way to victory but one bad card pull and all of a sudden Dracula is bearing down on you, fangs sharpened. If you or any villager is ever successfully attacked by a Monster, the terror track increases. If it gets to the end, you and your team are beaten.
It’s a wonderfully goofy theme, perfect for any fans of the old school Hammer Horror films. Perfect for Halloween but fun all year round (including Valentines Day!), Horrified like The A.R.T Project offers up a decent challenge which can be modified depending on your preference and experience with the game.
The various monster combinations means every game feels unique, and actually just playing with different people who might have alternative ideas and strategies means even if you’ve previously defeated or been defeated before, a whole new experience awaits you the next time you play.
A game which deserves its plaudits and fame, Horrified is co-op gaming perfection. I do find it a shame you can’t mix and match different sets, but do understand why, but if the Universal Monsters version doesn’t tickle your fancy, there are other excellent additions as well to perhaps suit your predilections, such as American Monsters, Greek Monsters and even Dungeons and Dragons for those still on the Stranger Things hype.
5. Nemesis
This has been a list of great co-op games, but perhaps you’re looking for a bit of competitiveness in your cooperation, and this is where Nemesis rears its ugly, acid spewing, Alien like head.
People might argue that Nemesis isn’t really a co-op game, due to the fact that at least one of you might actually be trying to kill the other characters in the game, but I think its this very fact that makes it one of the best co-op experiences there is.
If you’ve seen the Alien films, you understand the theme of Nemesis. Trapped on a ship, you and your fellow space crew are trying to navigate the ship, complete unique goals and (potentially) get the ship back to earth. But most importantly, you’re trying to stay alive against horrible aliens called Invaders, straight out of Ridley Scott’s masterpiece, who simply just want to kill you and the other survivors as gruesomely as possible.
You can use weapons, craft tools, and navigate the ship to achieve the overall goal of the game, as well your own individual missions. The game is huge, with a price tag to match, with lots of rules and components that can feel a bit much when you first open the box, but you’ll soon lose yourself in the incredible theme and audacity of it all.
I love Nemesis as a co-op experience because of the fact that at any moment one of your fellow players might betray you. It really is a co-op game until it isn’t. Ultimately even if some of the people around you are trying to kill you, or perhaps you’re the one doing the traitoring, you do still at times have to work together. The invaders don’t care whose side everyone is on. They kill any human in front of them.
I have played games of Nemesis where no one has taken the traitor option, simply because the game pushes you into this survival mode where you feel you have to come together to get to the end. It’s a ridiculously hard game, and everyone has this shared experience so that even if one player ‘accidentally’ leaves another player alone with the Queen Alien, it just adds extra elements to the story unfolding in front of you.
By the end of Nemesis I rarely care about if the team won or lost, who survived and who didn’t. Instead we talk about the narrative we all collectively created throughout the 4-5 hours of gameplay, the world we just got lost into.
And for me, that is the best co-operative experience you could ask for.
About the Author:
Paul Websell is a freelance contributor for Zatu who spends his time either playing board and video games or talking about them. While he’s not on social media, you can view his other blogs right here on Zatu!
