5 Big Board Games That Made A Splash At SPIEL Essen 2026

SPIEL Essen took place over the weekend and it's quite the big love-in for all things board games. With that in mind, I thought I'd put together an update on five of the board games that seemed to cause quite a lot of waves at the convention this year. Maybe you'll be tempted to pick up some of these for yourself!

Kingdom Come: Deliverance - The Board Game // CGE

The first of the games that was causing lines upon lines to snake their way around the convention (the British would be right at home) was Kingdom Come: Deliverance - The Board Game. Designed by Vlaada Chvátil and Tomáš Holek, the board game takes the adventures of the role-playing video game and brings them to the tabletop in their version of 15th-century Medieval Bohemia.

During the game, you will play out both day and night cycles where the player looks to try and leave their mark on history. This could mean helping out the local nobles or fighting enemies. It might even mean going to the other side of the law and stealing everything that you can get your hands on.

Kingdom Come: Deliverance - The Board Game - Gameplay // CGE

The game has been designed to be competitive, but each player is telling their own story rather than looking to ruin the chances of others at the table. The game has been designed to be as open-world as the video game, making use of a deck-building system which should be a familiar mechanic to a lot of board game fans. The starting setup for the game is always just a little bit different and might guide you as to where to take your character from playthrough to playthrough but the idea is to embrace the open-world nature of the game. I can see why people were intrigued by the game!

Off With Her Head?

The second of the games that we're going to be looking at is quite different in that it's a mid-to-heavy euro-style game called Queen Alice from Combo Games.

Queen Alice // Combo Games

Queen Alice comes from Héctor Carrión Benavent and David Heras Pino and was another of the games that caused quite a stir. More queues for you to wait in to get a chance for you to play the game by all accounts! In the game, you belong to the "Court on the Other Side of the Looking-Glass" and you need to prepare Alice's coronation banquet. Whoever does the best job of that will become the right-hand person of the Queen. It's not as easy as just doing your job; however as you then need to convince the various chess pieces to help with your preparations.

Queen Alice - Set-Up // Combo Games

Depending on the pieces that help with the coronation, you'll find that Alice is either the Red or White Queen, all dictated by your actions. You'll use a card-based system to drive the chess pieces but also use key points in the game to acquire passive and instant benefits that will then enhance the cards in your hand, improving the actions you can use. They have coined this their "chess-building" system. Very clever. It looks like a lot but I can promise you that most of the time, these euro games all start to click into place once you've taken a few turns.

Civilisation In 90 Minutes?

The next game we're going to be looking at is a lot easier to get your head around. If you like civilisation-style games but you think they take too long, you might want to check out Timespan from Capstone Games and designers Kenneth Minde and Kristian Amundsen Østby.

Timespan // Capstone Games

Timespan has been designed to be a streamlined civilisation game which features lots of variety from playthrough to playthrough. As you might have guessed, you take on the role of one of six asymmetric civilisations and their unique technology boards. You will then be able to further customise your civilisation by including over 157 historical people, buildings, technologies and wonders.

One of the big selling points of the game is that a lot of the game is played simultaneously, so you won't be waiting around for other players to take their turn, suffering the curse of analysis paralysis. That's why you're going to be able to fit it into just ninety minutes.

Timespan - Gameplay // Capstone Games

Timespan also does away with warfare (yes!), which means you'll be focused on the peaceful elements of civilisation building, exploration and economics. I do appreciate that as there's nothing worse than someone getting ganged up on and shoved into a tiny corner! The game plays out over five rounds where you'll be able to influence your different advancements in culture, science and, as you head further forward in time, your flight and space tracks. It looks like a neat take on a civilisation-style game, but can it do enough to replace something like 7 Wonders?

Head Into The Ancient Forest

Next up, we're going to go to another game that had its release at SPIEL Essen and gives you something a bit different in the form of Fragments: Fungataï.

Fragments: Fungataï // IELLO

Designed by Yohan Servais, Fragments: Fungataï is the newest in a set of narrative games with their own unique mechanics and jigsaw-style puzzle pieces. Fungataï introduces a four-chapter campaign that takes around seven hours to play, where your brother is in danger and you need to head into the ancient forest in order to find him.

Fragments: Fungataï - Components // IELLO

This is a bit different from the other games we've looked at so far in that it is designed as almost a "one-off" experience but once you've played it and worked out the solution, you can break it back down into its parts and send it on to a friend so they can experience it. I quite like these sort of games, especially if you've got a small group of two-to-four players who want a break from the heavier games in their collection. It also features beautiful artwork by Jiahui Eva Gao and Emilien Rotival.

If this has intrigued you, you can already look to get your hands on Fragments: Solara and try it out.

It's A Bit Nippy Out...

Last but not least, we have -60° from designers Alexander Pfister and Peter Prinz, a game also known as 60 Below.

-60° // Nanox Games

Following a strange light in the sky, you are going to be leaving a research team that has just landed on the shores of the Antarctic. You need to establish a network of stations and scout the landscape with the aim of reaching the meteorite site and becoming the ones to get their names in the history books.

-60° - Components // Nanox Games

The game features some beautiful artwork by Martin Mottet that hides a pretty hefty board game for one-to-four players. You will need to watch your scarce resources as you balance out the risk between heading out first and being prepared. There seems to be a nice element of risk and reward built into the flow of the game alongside plenty of core euro elements where you'll be seeing "things go up". It might sound simple but it really is a rewarding part of the board gaming experience!

There were plenty more hot games that showed their face at SPIEL Essen this year and I'm sure that you'll have more suggestions that you can drop into the comments below. What did you make of the five picks that we have here? Tempted?

Drop your thoughts down below...