We’ve now reached the mid-way point of the year, which means it is time to share Part 2 of my Most Anticipated Board Games of 2024! If you missed Part 1, you can check it out here, the list still fully applies. Some of those titles haven’t even released yet, but in recent months publishers have been spilling the beans on more of their 2024 plans.
Here are 19 more games I’m most excited to dig into this year. Note: this list will include a few titles published by us here at Bitewing Games (noted below) — because why wouldn’t I be excited about those?
Flowers: A Mandala Game
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Expected Release Date: July 19, 2024
Mandala and its sibling, Patterns, are among my favorite 2-player games. 40 of the Best 2-Player Board Games of All Time So seeing the same team bring us a multiplayer (2-4 players) title in this line has me excited. If you ever wished you could play Mandala with 3 or 4 players, then this might be right up your alley. I’m hoping it provides the same level of tension and depth as the 2-player game.
The Gang
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Expected Release Date: August 2024
Kosmos has had quite the hot streak putting out a fantastic card game every year or two with the likes of The Crew: The Quest for Planet Nine (2019), The Crew: Mission Deep Sea (2021), and Inside Job (2022). This publisher is due for another hit, and The Gang appears to be the chosen one. Simply put, it’s cooperative Texas Hold’em.
Lure
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Expected Release Date: August 2024
Lure was a bit overshadowed by the goliath of a game it was paired with in the River Valley Glassworks Kickstarter campaign from Allplay. But I’m very pumped to check out this competitive fishing dice chucker. Players secretely decide how many dice they will roll to try and catch fish, but the players who roll less dice will get to attempt the catch first.
Hamster Roll
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Expected Release Date: Q3 2024
This wacky dexterity game from the year 2000 has been brought back to life by 25th Century Games, and I’m all for it. Inside the box is packed a large hamster wheel where players are required to balance pieces on its small internal fences. The object of the game is to get rid of all of your pieces into the hamster wheel without causing it to roll and drop pieces.
Radlands: Cult of Chrome
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Expected Release Date: September 18, 2024
Fans of 2-player dueling game, Radlands, can look forward to this little expansion which introduces 32 new camps and 10 rebalanced camps. Camps are a core aspect of the variety and combos found in Radlands, so this little expansion promises to pack a big punch.
Ito
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Expected Release Date: October 2024
Publisher Arcane Wonders is bringing the acclaimed Ito to the North American market this year. This cooperative party game has a bit of a Wavelength vibe in that players are trying position their secret numbers (from 1-100) in numerical order relative to each other. This is done by offering up a clue related to a chosen theme. So if the theme was wetness (dry being 1 and wet being 100) and my number was 67, then I might offer up “all-day refrigerated deli sandwich” as my clue.
The Lord of the Rings: Duel for Middle Earth
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Expected Release Date: October 2024
This is likely to be one of the biggest releases of 2024, considering the fact that Duel of Middle Earth is a reworking of 7 Wonders Duel — one of the highest ranked games of all time. The same design team (Antoine Bauza and Bruno Cathala) have been brought back to cook up another hit along with legendary artist Vincent Dutrait to pay homage to one of the most beloved IP of all time. This is a recipe for success, if there ever was one. There seems to be a lot of changes to the core design, and I’m excited to explore them soon.
Bebop
Expected Release Date: Q4 2024
Published by Bitewing Games
If you know my tastes in gaming, then you know that I love a good tile placement strategy game. That’s why Reiner Knizia and I get along so well. This particular game isn’t from Reiner Knizia, but it scratches that same itch in new and interesting ways. Bebop is about claiming seats with your tiles and then booking fans in those seats by inserting dice. The seat tiles represent reservation and ownership, while the fan dice want to seated next to their family (like colors) and listening to their favorite musicians (adjaceny). This jazzy game of majority competitions has enough depth to explore across dozens of plays.
Shuffle & Swing
Expected Release Date: Q4 2024
Published by Bitewing Games
Shuffle & Swing is from the same designer as Bebop, Robert Hovakimyan, but it offers a very different type of experience. Players must strategically manage multiple rondels of worker dice as they compete to build instruments for giants and claim all of the credit. I fell in love with this game because it is far more interactive, focused, and tight than what I am used to seeing in the Eurogame efficiency genre.
Cat Blues: The Big Gig
Expected Release Date: Q4 2024
Published by Bitewing Games
Rounding out our approaching jazz trio is the next game in our Crown Jewel Selection — Cat Blues: The Big Gig by Reiner Knizia. Much like Zoo Vadis, we took a hard look at this classic card game and collaborated with Reiner Knizia on a new and improved edition. Cat Blues has refreshing as ever hand-management bidding, while this updated version makes the experience more fun and exciting for everyone.
Altay: Dawn of Civilization
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Expected Release Date: 2024
Let’s be honest… I’m here for the Paolo Mori (designer of many favorites including Ethnos, Dogs of War, Libertalia, and more). But it doesn’t hurt that this deck-building civilization game is gorgeously illustrated by Pauliina Hannuniemi. Here you’ll be claiming territory, developing technology, and claiming achievements.
Battalion: War of the Ancients
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Expected Release Date: November 19, 2024
Just like Altay, Battalion is on my radar thanks to co-designer Paolo Mori being a part of this project. It is also being published by Osprey Games who is one of the more reliable publishers in the industry (see also Undaunted, Cryptid, The King is Dead: Second Edition, High Society, London: Second Edition, and more). Battalion touts itself as an accessible two or four-player wargame that plays in under an hour.
Rebirth
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Expected Release Date: Q4 2024
That Reiner Knizia never rests. His latest big box offering is Rebirth, a simple tile placement game of drawing one tile at a time and deciding where to place it (like Carcassonne) for optimal scoring on the shared board. Players are rebuliding civilization in a futuristic Scotland, blocking each other from chaining huge points, and earning private objective cards along the way. Rebirth aims to be one of Knizia’s more approachable releases that straddles the fence between casual gamer and hobbyist gamer.
Snack Rabbits
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Expected Release Date: 2024? 2025? Who knows!
Here lies another game from the Mandala/Patterns/Flowers design duo (Trevor Benjamin and Brett J. Gilbert). This one has already released in Germany this year, and hopefully publisher Amigo will get around to translating and releasing it more broadly soon. Hard to know for sure when they took 20 months to release an English version of LAMA Dice.
Snack Rabbits is on my radar becuase of the design pedigree and because it presents a simple but interesting push-your-luck competition. Each turn you must decided whether to STOP (add another die to your supply) or HOP (cast as many dice as you wish to try and clear the fence and claim valuable vegetables). You’ll be tempted to hop that fence sooner than you should because the player who claims majority of a vegetable will score big points for it.
The Quest for El Dorado: The Golden Temples
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Expected Release Date: December 2024
El Dorado’s biggest fans have needed to jump through a lot of hoops to collect all of the juicy expansion content. The original publisher, Ravensburger, kinda just gave up after a couple expansions for some reason and left many folks hanging while Reiner kept releasing the good stuff with a reskin of the line (illustrated by Vincent Dutrait). Now if North American folks want to get all the good stuff, their best bet is to swallow the steep shipping costs and order all the new stuff from Lautapelit.fi (a publisher in Finland who happens to make the new English edition of everything).
We’re coming full circle with the final (known) expansion getting a Vincent Dutrait remodeling and some new gameplay content to boot. The Golden Temples is actually a standalone game that can be combined with The Quest for El Dorado to make a truly monsterous race of a game. It differs by having players race within El Dorado to pick up all the gems and return to the entrance first. One new feature in this version will include one-way spiked fences that will force players to go around on their way back.
Sky Team: Turbulence
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Expected Release Date: Q4 2024
2023 darling, Sky Team, is continuing to soar in this hobby thanks to the upcoming expansion: Turbulence. This expansion will feature new scenarios and modules including Turbulence, Low Visibility, and Alarms to keep you and your co-pilot coming back for many more flights.
Tokyo Highway: Rainbow City
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Expcected Release Date: Q4 2024
Tokyo Highway is a striking dexterity game of stacked pillars, popsicle sticks, and tiny cars that has been around since 2016. Rainbow City is like version 2.0 with an improved production and new missions that allow for more elaborate and crazy networks to be built. I’ve never played Tokyo Highway, but I love a good stacking game, and Rainbow City appears to be the perfect place to jump onboard.
Iliad and Ichor
Expected Release Date: Q1 2025, but maybe December 2024 for some lucky backers.
Published by Bitewing Games
Iliad and Ichor don’t just represent another publishing project for us. In some ways, they represent something bigger. These two games are kicking off our Mythos Collection — 2-player games of strategy and mythology. This collection represents our earnest efforts and vision to create a legendary line of 2-player games.
Iliad and Ichor are starting things off with Greek mythology and Knizia goodness (this is the year of Knizia for us, and we’re having a blast ????). With these two titles, Reiner Knizia has cooked up some easy-to-learn but deliciously deep duelers that each play in 40 minutes or less.
Iliad is a tile-placement strategy game for 2-players featuring powerful tile abilities and diverging victory objectives. Ichor is an asymmetric strategy game for 2-players featuring unique character powers and infinite setup variety.
You can check out the Kickstarter here.
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Article written by Nick Murray. Outside of practicing dentistry part-time, Nick has devoted his remaining work-time to collaborating with the world’s best designers, illustrators, and creators in producing classy board games that bite, including the critically acclaimed titles Trailblazers by Ryan Courtney and Zoo Vadis by Reiner Knizia. He hopes you’ll join Bitewing Games in their quest to create and share classy board games with a bite.
Disclaimer: When Bitewing Games finds a designer or artist or publisher that we like, we sometimes try to collaborate with these creators on our own publishing projects. We work with these folks because we like their work, and it is natural and predictable that we will continue to praise and enjoy their work. Any opinions shared are subject to biases including business relationships, personal acquaintances, gaming preferences, and more. That said, our intent is to help grow the hobby, share our gaming experiences, and find folks with similar tastes. Please take any and all of our opinions with a hearty grain of salt as you partake in this tabletop hobby feast.
