The best cooperative board games: six ways to team up against the game

In most board games, there is one winner at the table at the end. A cooperative game is different: you play together against the game, and the game hits back every round. You all win together or you all lose together, and that completely changes the conversation at the table.

Below are six of the best cooperative board games, also known informally as co-op board games, grouped by how many evenings they will take up. All six are on our shelves.

One thing up front, because it saves disappointment: these are games for ages 12 and up, and all but one of them take longer than an hour. If you are looking for something cooperative for younger children, we will point you in the right direction further down. Would you rather see the full range than our selection? Then take a look at the Cooperative games category.

What makes a cooperative game good?

Two things, and the second is often forgotten.

The first is that the game really fights back. A cooperative game you nearly always win is a puzzle with extra steps. The good ones beat you regularly, and that is exactly what makes the times you succeed worthwhile.

Beyond that, everyone at the table needs to have something to decide. That sounds obvious, but it is exactly where the genre comes unstuck. We will come back to that at the bottom, because it deserves a heading of its own.

Want to know first what cooperative means exactly and which other genres there are? Our piece on types of board games explains it.

One evening, one mission

Sky Team

exactly 2 players, ages 12+, about 30 minutes.

You are the pilot, the co-pilot sits opposite you, and together you have to bring a plane down. You take turns placing dice on the cockpit: throttle, brakes, landing gear, heading. The sting is in the rule that you may not discuss anything during the landing.

Luc Rémond won the Spiel des Jahres with it in 2024, the main award and not the Kennerspiel. Of these six, it is the only game that is done within half an hour and the only one for exactly two people. If you want to find out whether this genre suits you, start here. Sky Team

The Lord of the Rings: Fate of the Fellowship

1 to 5 players, ages 14+, well over an hour.

You protect Frodo on his way through Middle-earth while the Eye of Sauron searches and the enemy advances. Fighting, evading, and constantly choosing who takes which risk.

This is the game for a table that wants the story, not the puzzle. It goes up to five players, which is generous for this genre; most co-ops stop at four. Fate of the Fellowship

A campaign over several evenings

Pandemic Legacy Blue Season 1

2 to 4 players, ages 12+, about 45 minutes per game.

Four diseases are spreading across the world map, and you are the team that has to stop them. The difference from regular Pandemic: what happens in one game carries over to the next. You put on stickers, you tear up cards, and the world changes permanently.

Matt Leacock and Rob Daviau were nominated for the Kennerspiel des Jahres with it in 2016, the year Isle of Skye won. A game takes three quarters of an hour, which is doable on a weeknight, and the campaign runs over a series of evenings. Agree beforehand who you will play it with, because swapping someone out halfway through does not work. Pandemic Legacy Blue Season 1

Gloomhaven: Jaws of the Lion

1 to 4 players, ages 14+, well over an hour.

Four mercenaries, a dungeon and a stack of scenarios that build on each other. Each round you play two cards from your hand, and those cards determine both what you do and the order in which everyone takes their turn.

This is the way into the world of Gloomhaven: it is standalone, takes place before the big Gloomhaven and teaches you the rules through the first scenarios instead of a forty-page manual. Fourteen on the box, and here that is no formality. Gloomhaven: Jaws of the Lion

A story to lose yourself in

Sleeping Gods

1 to 4 players, ages 13+, well over an hour per session.

A ship, a crew and an atlas full of numbered locations. You sail somewhere, someone reads out the matching passage, and together you choose what to do. Those choices change the world and stick, because you save the campaign and carry on later.

Two things to know before you take it home: it is in English, and there is a lot of reading aloud. If someone at the table struggles with that, the atmosphere falls flat. If everyone joins in, you build up a story you will still be referring back to months later. Sleeping Gods

Earthborne Rangers

1 to 4 players, ages 12+, well over an hour.

As a ranger, you explore a valley that adapts to what you do, with your own deck of cards that you build along the way. No dungeon, no disease, no disaster: just a landscape you travel through.

What sets this game apart in this line-up is its tone. There is no clock ticking down and no disaster drawing closer. That makes it the calmest game of the six, and for some groups the most enjoyable. Earthborne Rangers

And if you are looking for something lighter?

To be honest: right now we have few cooperative games for younger children or for a quick game. The light classics of this genre are sold out with us.

What we do have: Bandido, a cooperative card game for one to four players aged six and up, in which you work together to block a crook's escape routes. Fifteen minutes, and it is described in our children's board games.

The dominant player problem

We have to be honest about this, because it is the biggest objection to the whole genre. In almost every group there is someone who knows the game best. In a cooperative game, within two rounds that person starts deciding the plan for the whole table, and the others end up carrying out their turns for them. Then four people are playing a game that really only one of them is playing.

The solution is an agreement, not a rule: everyone decides their own turn, even if it is not the best move. Asking for advice is fine; giving advice nobody asked for is not.

In a campaign game this counts double. A one-off game in which someone plays the boss is one evening; a campaign of twelve evenings is a habit that sets in. Sky Team is the only game on this list that solves the problem in the box, because there you are simply not allowed to talk during the landing.

Where do you start?

If you have never played cooperatively before, go for Sky Team. Thirty minutes, two players, and after one game you will know whether this genre suits you.

If you are looking for something for a group of four or five on a single evening, Fate of the Fellowship is the logical choice, and if you want something to keep going with for months, you choose between Pandemic Legacy and Gloomhaven: Jaws of the Lion. The first is more accessible, the second goes deeper.

And if it is mainly a story you are after, Sleeping Gods and Earthborne Rangers come into view. You will find the full range in the Cooperative games category.