Best Horror Board Games of 2024 – Review and Comparison

What makes the best horror board game? Is it a great design, bone-chilling gameplay, or an ambiance of terror? Maybe a combination of all three, or something else entirely?

For most of us, time is precious and sadly shorter than we would like. Life is certainly too short to waste on playing bad, boring, or simply ‘ok’ board games. Instead, we want our choices to make the spine tingle, the hairs on the neck stand up, and a creepy sense of the unknown to overcome us.

Gameplay should be addictive and fast-paced, able to keep your brain guessing while still supplying that sense of dread which is crucial for a good game of this genre. The outcome should be satisfying and a challenge to reach and of course, more than anything, should spook you to your very core.

We have made it our mission to provide you with the best horror board games you can buy today. After extensive research and testing, we have put together a list of the top ten horror-themed board games. Be warned: some are not for the faint-hearted!

From vampires to zombies, ghosts to ghouls, there is something here to capture your interest, and let you indulge your desire for scares and shivers in the comfort of your own home. Are you brave enough to start a journey into the unknown? Can you stay on course, even when the creepiness evolves ever further? And do you have the guts to go all the way, and emerge the winner? Read on for our top picks for the best horror board games of all time, and play if you dare…

Top 10 Horror Board Games – Quick Summary

Best Rated Horror Games – Detailed Reviews

1. Best Overall – Arkham Horror (Third Edition)

They encounter people, place creatures which are both mundane and normal. The investigators undergo a series of adventures and gain the clues and resources they require to confront and thwart the Mythos threat in the final phase.

During their time in the city, they gather spells, weapons, clues, and other items to help them throughout the scenario. At first, they aim to avoid powerful monsters, before moving on to close a few gates and seal the active gates, which is the objective of the game.

Once several gates have been sealed and the investigators have the resources they need, they make a final assault on Mythos and try to seal the most active gates. If they succeed, the world is saved. If they fail, the Ancient One awakens for a climactic battle, and it is time to fight for your lives!

Five phases determine one turn in the game. Starting with the first player and continuing clockwise, each player performs the actions which occur within that phase. Once all the players have completed the phase, the first player marker is passed to the player to the left, and a new turn begins along with the next phase.

The phases of each turn are:

Phase I: Upkeep – refresh exhausted cards, perform upkeep actions and adjust skills (if changed)
Phase II: Movement – change investigator’s physical location on the board, pick up clue tokens and trade
Phase III: Arkham Encounters – complete an encounter if the investigator is at location
Phase IV: Other World – complete an encounter if the investigator is at the Other World
Phase V: Mythos – when bad things happen and monsters get spawned

Each phase has its requirements and set of actions to complete, all of which leads to the final, dramatic battle for survival and the fate of the world!

Arkham Horror is tense, atmospheric and requires the player to constantly remain on their toes, thinking, and making important decisions. There are a strong narrative and a story that weaves throughout the game, and the choices you make can have a big impact on the outcome.

It can be tricky with a larger number of players, as the difficulty tends to increase. In fact, anywhere up to four players seem to keep the game balance. Over four makes the game less enjoyable due to the additional downtime and increased complexity.

Overall, an immersive experience that takes you into another world, and encourages you to fight to the death for a successful outcome!

2. Best Horror Coop Board Game- Mansions of Madness: Second Edition

Mansions of Madness consists of a unique map that leads players through a pre-set story, offering several different combinations of plot possibilities and outcomes. It is played over a series of rounds, and each round has two phases: Investigator and Mythos. These are played in a continuous cycle until the players win or lose.

Investigator Phase
During this phase, investigators perform actions to move around the game board, attack monsters, and explore their surroundings, such as:

● Move
● Explore
● Search
● Interact
● Trade
● Component
● Attack

Once all Investigators have had a turn, play moves to the Mythos Phase where bad things happen.

Mythos Phase
This phase generates mythos effects, such as spawning monsters and raising challenges and indicated monster actions. Investigators must resolve these events, and may include Horror Check or Monster Activations – be prepared for anything in this phase!

When setting up the game, the scenario selected will tell the Investigators what they need to do to win. The twist? This goal is hidden from the players. As the game progresses, it is up to you to unravel the mystery and find out the ultimate goal. This solution can be achieved by listening carefully to the scenario’s prologue and intricately examining hints when discovered.

The objective will be revealed well into the game, and Investigators will have one final task to complete. If they take too long, the scenario’s aim may change or become too complicated making the victory unlikely. Ultimately, Investigators need to work together as a team to ensure their actions are efficient and can complete the required objective before the time runs out.

The rules to Mansions of Madness can be slightly complex, but it is well worth taking the time to puzzle them out.

This is a detailed, fast-paced, and immersive game that requires quick thinking and teamwork to survive. Taking too long can cost you the game, and the decisions you make can totally change the outcome. For a challenging combination of roleplay, card game, and teamwork, this is the best Lovecraft horror board game we’ve played.

3. Best Murder Case Solving – Mysterium

The mediums must decipher the images to help the ghost remember how he was murdered and solve the mystery.

You will need to uncover critical details, such as who committed the crime? Where did it occur? What was the weapon? By working together, you can discover clues and secrets to put the puzzle together. If you’ve played Clue before, you know what’s it about.

In Mysterium, one player takes on the role of the ghost, and everyone else acts as a medium. With their help, the ghost first recalls the presence of the suspects on the night of the murder. There are different suspect, location, and weapon cards, which the ghost randomly assigns to a medium in secret.

Each game turn represents one hour, and the ghost turns one or more vision cards face up. They refill their hand to a total of seven each time. The medium’s job is to deduce the suspect which corresponds to the vision card, and they have two minutes from the time the ghost hands the cards to the final medium.

Mediums place their token on a suspect, and put clairvoyance tokens on those suspected by other mediums, to show whether they agree or disagree.

At the end of the two minutes, the ghost reveals which guesses were correct. Mediums who guessed right move on to working out the location of the crime. Those who failed to receive new vision cards, and continue to guess the suspect.

Once a medium has a correct guess for the suspect, murder weapon, and location, they move their token to the epilogue board. At least one medium must identify all three aspects correctly before the end of the seventh hour, or the ghost dissipates, leaving players wondering and the mystery unsolved.

Alternatively, If they all succeed, the spirit recovers enough of its memory to identify the culprit.

If most of the mediums have identified the correct suspect, the killer is identified, and the ghost rests in peace. If not, Mr. MacDowell will be having a few sleepless nights…

Mysterium is an exciting and unique board game which leads to a lot of fun guessing and deducing the final suspect. The puzzle comes together in pieces, making the overall reveal satisfying and worth the wait. The key aspect of helping the ghost find the killer and receive justice is teamwork, and the better you are at collaborating, the more chances you have of winning the board game.

4. Best Horror Board Game Classic – Betrayal at House on the Hill

In Betrayal at House on the Hill, every player, including the traitor, has their own victory goals. If anyone reaches their goals, the game is over, and if any player reaches zero on any of their ‘life energy’ levels, they die. The last ‘living’ player wins unless the traitor gets them first.

To start the board game, each player gets to pick one of six character plates that illustrate the character’s stats. Once you’ve chosen your avatar, you get preset ‘life energy’ levels, namely Sanity, Might, Knowledge, and Speed. You can increase or decrease your levels as you advance in the game.

Initially, the upper and lower floors are joined by a staircase while the basement is isolated. Each floor is positioned on a different part of the table to make sure the floors are visually separated. There are tokens for different ghosts and monsters, tiles for each room, and cards that represent Items, Omens, and Events.

As you progress exploring the haunted mansion, the players get to find and reveal the haunted scenario. The scenario identifies the story as well as the traitor to side with the ghosts. At this point, traitor or hero players need to physically leave the room to read their new haunting rules and strategize on the plan going forward. Once everyone is back, the game continues, with the traitor trying to kill fellow players while they attack him/her (and their creatures).

On your turn, you use your Speed levels to move around the house, opening doors to explore various rooms. If you open an ‘empty room’, then you pick a room tile and use it to ‘build’ the room. The tile might have an Omen, Event, or Item on it, so follow instructions by picking a card from the right pile.

Items offer equipment you can use to explore or defend yourself. Events use dice to add or reduce your ‘life energy levels’ (i.e. your might, speed, knowledge, or sanity). Omens offer ‘numbered gifts’ so you have to roll the dice to keep your omen.

If your dice score is less than the omen, the haunting begins. During the haunting phase of the game, the traitor and other players take turns attacking each other.

Monsters in the game include ghosts, zombies, cannibals, dragons, vampires and others. The great thing about them is that as you play along, you get to know each monster’s backstory making the gaming experience more thematic.

Lastly, the latest re-print of the board game adds 20 new room tiles, one extra floor, 30 new cards, and 50 new haunts. Fans of the game also get two limited edition promo cards : Betrayal and Bardul’s Gate and Betrayal at House on the Hill (Green Devil Face Card and Snake Card). All the good reasons to start building and exploring the hauned house!

5. Best Hidden Identities – Dead of Winter

Since Dead of Winter is cooperative, it comes with 20 different scenarios and a shared objective the team cumulatively needs to achieve to win the game. Every scenario has the main objective, which controls how the game is played. It specifies the number of rounds you’ll play, the team’s joint goal, and a preset morale level.

On top of the shared objective, each player gets also dealt an identity card with a secret objective. Most of the time, the objective is related to helping the colony get through challenges (if you are a good guy/gal) and become most helpful. Other times, the card may suggest that you are a traitor with a personal objective directly opposite of the one other players have.

At the same time, having a traitor in the game is not guaranteed as more cards are mixed into the deck than there are players. I have passionately accused other player of being traitors only to find out at the end of the game that we did not have any. At the same time, if you get enough support from other team members, you can exile the traitor player to constrain what he/she can do.

Nevertheless, the idea of having a traitor in the team is enough to add an element of suspense and even paranoia into the gameplay.

The game is played in a series of rounds. Each round players can pick one of the 12 base actions or use the character’s special ability. The most common actions are scavenging for useful things like weapons, food, supplies, medicine, or fuel, attacking zombies, and moving between locations. In addition, you can also build barricades, clean waste, and attack other players.

The game keeps going until your colony runs out of morale or rounds in which case it ends in defeat. Alternatively, one or more players can come out victorious if the game’s main objective is achieved.

Dead of Winter is a great, fresh, and modern take on a zombie theme that combines psychological mettle with contagious, flesh-eating monsters. It has both co-operative and individual elements, and players have to balance them out to be efficient and eventually win the game. Victory isn’t clear-cut as everyone as well as individual players can both win and lose.

If you prefer the zombie side of horror board gaming, make sure you check our best zombie board games we’ve just finished writing.

6. Best Short Horror Board Game – Ghost Stories

Each village tile allows the players to benefit from a unique bonus. For example, Taoist can bring a dead Taoist back to life in the cemetery, or recover spent Tao tokens from a herbalist. Players can also gain traps, unhaunt other village tiles and even move ghosts as desired.

When it is his turn, a Taoist can move onto a tile to benefit from the action of a villager living on the tile – providing it is not haunted – or even exorcize the ghost which haunts adjacent tiles!

To successfully exorcize a ghost in Ghost Stories, three Tao dice must be rolled with different colors – yellow, green, black, white, red and blue. If the roll matches the colors of the ghosts or the incarnation of Wu-Feng, the exorcism is successful.

For example, to exorcize a green ghost which has a resistance of three, three green dice must be rolled. If your die roll lacks a needed color, you can also use Tao tokens to match the color – these can also be used after the turn. These tokens can be found using certain village tiles, or by exercising ghosts. One player will also have a power, allowing them to receive a token once a turn.

White is a ‘wild color’ and can be used as any color – if you only roll two red and a white, that white transforms into a red, allowing the successful exorcism.

To win in Ghost Stories, the incarnation of Wu-Feng must be defeated. Harder levels of difficulty can be added which increase the number of incarnations, and to win, and all must be overcome.

Losing is easy! If three of the villages tiles are haunted, the draw pile is emptied while the Wu-Feng incarnation is in play, or all the priests are dead, it is game over, and the ghosts can take over the village!

Ghost Stories is a cooperative, team-based game which draws players together in their battle to save the village. It offers a tense and exciting game which leaves you desperate to save the village!

7. Best Zombie Killing Masacre – Zombicide Season 3 – Rue Morgue

Seems simple right? After all, the zombies are pretty stupid, slow and predictable. The bad news? There are a lot of them!

Survivors can use anything they can get their hands on to eliminate the zombie threat; the bigger the weapon, the more zombies can be killed. Trade equipment, give, receive and ignore advice, and even perform the Ultimate Sacrifice to save the world.

In Zombicide Season 3: Rue Morgue you need to work together to achieve the mission objectives and survive. You also need to clean out infested areas, find food and weapons, and rescue survivors.

The player with the first token takes his turn and activates his survivors one at a time in the order of his choice. At the tart, each survivor can perform three actions per turn, though this can change as the game progresses.

Survivors use their actions to move around the map and perform crucial tasks to accomplish the mission objectives. Be aware, some actions make noise: and this attracts zombies!

Once all survivors are activated, the player to his left takes a turn, and so on until all players have completed their turns. This action ends the Players phase.

After this, the Zombie phase begins. All zombies on the board are activated, and wither attack a survivor next to them, or move towards survivors or noisy zones. Some zombies get two actions that allow them to move twice, attack twice, or attack and move.

The game is over when all Survivors have been gruesomely killed or won when all the mission objectives have been achieved.

A simple gameplay style allows players to immerse themselves in the story, which is carried out against a backdrop of detailed miniatures and top quality board and miniatures.

8. Best For Two Players – Arkham Horror: The Card Game

Once you have chosen your starting point, the campaign rulesheet will provide instructions for the first scenario. These help to set up the narrative, and inject a suitably spooky atmosphere into the proceedings. Following this, the ‘Campaign Setup’ section will provide you with the instructions to set up your adventure.

During a scenario, the aim is to complete all of the Act cards within the scene, before the Agenda cards are resolved. The Act cards advance the story towards success and victory, while the Agenda cards move closer to doom.

Act cards are completed by finding and cashing in clues and investigating locations. Remember that Agenda cards sneak closer to completion, no matter what you do!

To increase the challenge, the Encounter Deck will throw random encounters and challenges at you in every turn, introducing curses, monsters, and obstacles.

There are four main phases to Arkham Horror: The Card Game

Mythos Phase

Your enemies agenda advances, and each player is required to take a card from the Encounter Deck and resolve it. This phase is bad, so keep an eye at it as you don’t want it to advance too quickly!

Investigation Phase

During the Investigation phase you can pause and catch your breath. Each player takes three actions, such as fighting a monster, investigating a location, gaining resources or moving to a new location.

Every time you face a challenge, however, your Investigators skill will be tested against a random value. This value is generated by a token drawn from the Chaos Bag. Things can change in the blink of an eye!

You will need to work together to overcome and minimize problems, as well as making your way through the Act Deck – strategy is critical.

Enemy Phase

Things are bad again! Any enemies on the board are activated, and relevant effects restored. They can attack investigators, sneak away, or generate Doom to advance the Agenda.

Upkeep Phase

Each player gains a resource and a card, and everyone prepares to go again. This cycle continues until the Agenda deck reaches completion – and the world ends – or you advance the Act deck enough to escape the current scenario.

Once the scenario has ended, the Campaign Guide will tell you your fate, and you can begin the next scenario – if you dare.

Arkham Horror: The Card Game offers a fast-paced, intense role-playing experience for two players. It puts the fate of the world in your hands and you together with your gaming partner need to find a way to win the forces of evil through collaborative effort. The board game can be adapted to your preferred style of gameplay and is a great opportunity to socialize and work as a team against the darkness.

If you are looking for scary board games then it could be a challenge as although most of board games in our top ten are brilliant in their own way, not all of them are truly scary. Arkham Horror: The Card Game on the other hand can top the ranks of scariest board games quite easily. 

9. Best Vampire Board Game – Fury of Dracula

Each hunter in Fury of Dracula has a day and a night move and moves across the 1890’s Europe, traveling from city to city using rail or roads.

Hunters can perform actions and travel by day, but they must not travel by night; this is when the vampires are strongest. There are multiple actions to choose from on their turns:

• Gaining items and event cards in cities. During the day, any event card obtained must come from the top of the deck if it is theirs and discard Dracula cards. At night, however, they must draw from the bottom of the pack, and give any Dracula cards to him, strengthening his hand.
• Get a train ticket
• Rest to heal wounds
• Exchange items
• Take an individual action (unique to each character)

When it is Dracula’s turn, he places a new location card on his track. This card indicates to the hunters where he is, and the last six locations he is known to have visited. He must also lay an Encounter card at each site.

If a Hunter lands on one of these locations, the card must be revealed, giving them an idea of where he is. If they find him, or he shows himself, combat ensues.

During combat, Dracula gains his combat cards, and Hunters their item and weapon cards. With each round of combat, each side must reveal a chosen card. Some beat others, some render the other void, and some have other consequences. Conflict can go on until one of the party escapes.

The Encounter cards held by Dracula can also contain fledgling vampires who may engage in combat with hunters, in addition to other traps.

If the Hunters can defeat Dracula in combat, they win. Achieve victory by knocking down all of his health points before the allocated time elapses.

If Dracula can gain enough points before he is defeated, he wins the game. Points are earned by defeating Hunters and maturing his fledgling vampires.

Fury of Dracula is an immersive experience with high replay value – playing as Dracula offers a new, asymmetric experience compared to playing as a Hunter. Hunters are pitted against the nightmares of the night in a battle for victory, and there is a sense that Dracula creeps closer with every turn.

10. Best Horror Miniatures – The Others

The Others is a maze of plot twists and turns, victories and defeats, and life and death. You and your team stand between the world and its destruction if you dare to play.

Player either play as Sins or Heroes. Heroes are divided into different classes, and each specializes in different aspects:

● Leaders are good at helping teammates
● Bruisers are top melee fighters
● Snipers are experts at shooting from a distance
● Fixers have knowledge of the occult and can remove supernatural entities

In addition, each hero has their stats, abilities, and strengths – bringing in the right hero at the right time can win you the battle.

Corruption is a crucial element. It allows Sin to consume heroes, but also enables heroes to accomplish amazing feats if they take corruption. This perk grants them powerful bonuses but has a dark side: when they are entirely corrupted, their demons come back to haunt them, destroying the team from within. Ultimately, their flesh may succumb to sinful influences.

The Sins player can access the different monsters held by each Sin and can either destroy the Heroes or hinder their progress. Each Sin Player has a deck of cards specific to their Sin, and these can be played at different times to surprise players. Each Sin taints the game with an overriding mechanic.

For example, Heroes who wander the streets alone will be punished by Pride, while Sloth will capture those who try to move quickly. It is up to the Heroes to deal with the different influences of each Sin, and this stands between them and their mission.

Acolytes also aid Sins. These are corrupted servants of darkness, and stand in the way of heroes. They also have one unique ability which reflects their previous lives – e.g., the corrupted doctors prevent heroes from healing.

Each session of The Others contains seven different stories, each with their own rules, dynamics, and missions. The three main types are Terror stories – more focused on action and combat, Corruption stories – focusing on the corruption spreading through the city, and Redemption stories – these focus on saving the town and the innocents.

The board has several tiles, which represent different city districts and street configurations. The city still belongs to humans, and so they can get benefits from different areas – the museum gets rid of corruption, and the hospital heals wounds, the regions which are available help to change the whole game.

As the game progresses, the Apocalypse Track advances, and this makes the Sins stronger. If the Track isn’t kept back and defeated, the Sins win, and humanity goes to hell.

With twists and turns, narrative red herrings, and the Sins growing ever stronger, this is a game that doesn’t let you pause for breath. The choices you make determine the course of the narrative, and it is hard not to get sucked into the terror of the encroaching Apocalypse!

A cherry on top is the best miniature in board games we’ve seen. Wait until you hold a 5″ monster in your hands as it would totally justify the slightly premium price tag the board game carries.

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