Our board game experts reveal the best horror board games in 2023/24.
Discover the most rewarding games to play.
Everyone loves a bit of horror and so if you’re looking for something a bit more involved than shouting “Don’t go into the basement!” at your TV screen, a horror-themed board game could be right up your spooky street.
We find it hard to resist the lure of monsters, ghosts and the living dead here at Ginger Fox, too, so we’ve bravely collected together our personal picks for a scary night in with friends or even by yourself (if you dare). Every day (and evening) can be Halloween if you want it to be…
Here is, in no particular order, our top ten list of frightfully fearsome (OK, you’ve probably got the idea now) board games for the bravest and best of us.
Players: two to five players
Gameplay: 120 to 180 minutes
Category: adventure, deduction, horror, fighting, strategy
Age: 14-plus (12-plus for more experienced horror fans)
Reasons to play: immersive, atmospheric, charismatic villain, complex enough to play over and over again
Downsides: you do need five players to get the most out of the game
Fury of Dracula 4th Edition is a remake of the original 1987 game which includes improved and updated graphic design, improved components and streamlined gameplay.
Fury of Dracula 4th edition combines deduction and strategy with gothic horror. Count Dracula is travelling all over Europe and trying to turn lots of humans into vampires along the way. The Count hides most of his movements and lays deadly traps for the vampire hunters who are chasing him.
The hunters have to find Dracula before he manages to turn 13 humans into vampires, or else all of Europe will be lost forever to the undead. Not only does Fury of Dracula involve a lot of deduction and cooperation, but it looks great too, with stunning miniatures and larger gameplay cards.
The game’s rounds are divided into day and night and while the hunters can move during both periods, Dracula can only work his evil during the night - although he does have a few tricks up his well-tailored sleeves…
Players: one to five players
Gameplay: 30 to 40 minutes
Category: horror, strategy, fighting, turn taking
Age: 14-plus
Reasons to play: fast-paced, popular theme (zombies never go out of style), five different play modes (including solo)
Downsides: the game can take up quite a bit of space and the components are fiddly
In Tiny Epic Zombies you’re transported to the Echo Ridge Mall, which is being overrun by zombies. You can either play as the survivors or as the zombies and the fast pace and relatively short playing time of Tiny Epic Zombies means you’ll play it lots of times.
If you’re playing as survivors, you’ll have to complete three objectives to win and if you’re feeling a bit more undead, you’ll have to kill all of the survivors or take over the mall’s courtyard.
The gameplay is focused on fighting (with the help of a die), picking up ammo and other useful items, searching rooms and trying not to use up all of your ammo - all while working towards your objectives. If you concentrate too hard on your objectives, the zombies may well take over!
As zombies, you’ll all have special powers (to make up for the fact you’re undead…) and you’ll have to think strategically and deploy your horde of the living dead in clever ways to pick off the survivors.
Players: one to five players
Gameplay: 120 to 180 minutes
Category: horror, strategy, co-operative, investigative
Age: 14-plus
Reasons to play: the game’s companion app takes over the role of dungeon master and leads you through, genuine Lovecraftian atmosphere, you can play alone or with friends
Downsides: some of the game’s scenarios can feel overlong and unwieldy
Mansions of Madness 2nd Edition is a co-operative game which immerses players in the creepy world of HP Lovecraft. You and your team are investigating horrific murders and you’ll face hideous monsters that’ll terrify even the hardiest horror fans.
This second edition offers players a more streamlined experience and the companion app creates the game for you, leaving you free to “enjoy” everything the Lovecraft universe has to offer…
Your investigations will take you through the streets of Arkham and, while you can decide for yourself what and where to investigate, one wrong move could unleash unthinkable horrors!
Thankfully, you have help from spells, weapons and bandages and the game comes complete with very detailed miniatures and amazing artwork so you’ll soon feel - ahem - comfortable in Arkham.
Players: three to seven players
Gameplay: 40 to 45 minutes
Category: mild horror, co-operative, investigative, deductive
Age: 10-plus
Reasons to play: Mysterium is suitable for younger children, engaging, short game, very replayable, stunning artwork
Downsides: the game can take a while to set up
Mysterium is a deduction game in which you and your team are gifted mediums, trying to decipher cryptic visions sent by a ghost who wanders the mansion, looking for rest.
The game involves a lot of discussion and thinking, with one player taking on the role of the ghost who’s trapped in the mansion after being horribly murdered. The ghost sends messages to the mediums in an attempt to reveal who the murderer was and what actually happened.
Each of the mediums gets three combinations of suspect, location and weapon and they work independently and as a group to solve the murder. As the ghost can’t communicate in any way other than to show their own cards, it’s mostly up to the mediums to deduce what happened.
Once the team works out the details of the murder, the ghost can finally find peace and the game is won.
Players: one to five players
Gameplay: 40 to 60 minutes
Category: classic horror themes, strategy, co-operative, investigative
Age: 10-plus
Reasons to play: fast-paced, fun, suitable for younger children, replayable
Downsides: the game can feel somewhat repetitive at times
Universal Studio’s most iconic monsters are coming to your town and you have to save it from doom. Horrified is a light co-operative game and it involves a combination of pick up and delivery moves as well as strategic moves.
You have to work out each monster’s weakness and use it to defeat them. In Horrified, you can play against two, three or four monsters, which raises the peril and the - ahem - stakes. When you’ve decided which horror icons you fancy a face off with, you and your team set off around town, collecting various tokens which will help you to prevail against the various forms of ancient evil.
There’s a different objective for each monster - to defeat Dracula you have to destroy four coffins before staking the Count, for example. Players also have their own unique powers and abilities, such as teleportation but be warned, once you’ve made a move, so will the monsters…
To mix things up a bit, you can play with different combinations of monsters and you carry on playing until each villain is dispatched or until the event deck runs out of cards.
Players: four to eight players
Gameplay: 60 to 120 minutes
Category: classic horror themes, hidden identity, co-operative, investigative, alien
Age: 17-plus
Reasons to play: unique story arc each time, very replayable, genuine sense of menace and tension
Downsides: you need more than four players to get the most out of it, being The Thing can be stressful, not suitable for younger players
Based on the classic 1982 John Carpenter horror film, The Thing: Infection at Outpost 31 takes you to the desolate Antarctic where you face a hostile alien that wants to assimilate you - and not in a good way.
This is a hidden identity game as you’ll have to perform a series of investigations at the research station to find out who’s infected, which leads to just the right amount of mistrust and paranoia. You’ll play one of 12 characters, using found supplies and equipment to sweep the outpost building, clear it of alien contagion and save humanity.
Players: one to five players
Gameplay: 90 to 180 minutes
Category: classic horror themes, co-operative, investigative, alien
Age: 12-plus
Reasons to play: narrative develops and changes as you play, highly interactive, clever alien spawning mechanism, high-quality components
Downsides: the game can feel overlong at times
Just as in the film, you start off Alien: Nemesis by waking up from hypersleep. You soon realise that your long sleep has made you forget the layout of the ship and also that there’s lots of warning sounds and, most worryingly, a dead body. This is when the cat-and-mouse game starts for real!
Each player has two secret objective cards - one more selfish and one more co-operative - and when you first meet an intruder you must choose one of these objectives.
One twist is, however, that even a team-based objective might clash with someone else’s, which can lead to all sorts of conflict and strategic jiggery pokery as well as dodging aliens and infection.
Players: three to ten players
Gameplay: 10 to 15 minutes
Category: classic horror theme, fun, co-operative, investigative,
Age: 8-plus
Reasons to play: fast-paced and suitable for young children, very flexible and replayable, a great companion app with spooky sounds
Downsides: the rules can be a bit fiddly to start with
One Night: Ultimate Werewolf is a fast bluffing game involving lots of different roles - Harmless Villages, Troublemaker and, of course, Werewolf. Whoever draws the Werewolf card has to try to evade detection and capture by lying, bluffing and tricking their way to victory. Actions take place at “night”, which means everyone closes their eyes and then it’s time to start deducing.
Players vote on who they think is the hairy villain and if they’re right, the Werewolf comes to a bad end. If they’re wrong, then the Werewolves are victorious and live to howl at the full moon once more.
If you really enjoy fast-paced games like Ultimate Werewolf, then We’re All Gonna Die will probably be great fun for you as well. It’s for older players than Ultimate Werewolf - 16+ - and you have to use a combination of luck and smarts to avoid “interesting” forms of demise such as Fork in a Toaster.
Players: three to five players
Gameplay: 60 to 90 minutes
Category: Japanese horror theme, reverse hide and seek, co-operative, investigative,
Age: 14-plus
Reasons to play: unusual concept, dexterity, genuinely creepy, stunning artwork
Downsides: long set-up process, rules sometimes unclear
In Hako Onna, which is “woman in a box” in Japanese, one player becomes Hako Onna, the ghost of a murdered girl, who waits for visitors to her mansion so she can turn them into her servants.
The other players are the visitors and in order to win the game, they must either escape from the mansion, lay Hako Onna’s ghost to rest or defeat it. The only trouble is, there’s quite a few boxes for the visitors to open in their search for tools and items and the deadly ghost could be lurking in any one of them.
When it’s Hako Onna’s move, the visitors have to close their eyes so they can’t see what she’s doing or where she’s moved to. To make things even trickier, visitors have to perform a dexterity test (placing a small disc on top of previously-stacked discs) before they can make their move. If the pile collapses, this activates Hako Onna and you don’t want to do this...
Players: one to six players
Gameplay: 45 to 180 minutes
Category: splatter horror, fun (if a bit gory), co-operative
Age: 13-plus
Reasons to play: easy-to-follow rules, straightforward fighting game, very luck-based game, lots of expansion packs, very flexible
Downsides: lots of expansion packs (it can get a bit pricey)
Sometimes, only a good old-fashioned splatter fest will do and Zombicide 2nd Edition delivers all the gore and more. You all play survivors - no hidden enemies or incubating zombies - and each of you has a special ability to offer to the undead-killing mission.
The zombies aren’t too bright, but there are more of them than bullets, so you’ll have to search for more weapons and equipment. The more zombies you kill, the more skills you garner, which sounds great until you realise that this just brings more zombies shuffling along!
You can play from one of ten different scenarios or you can make up your own with the game’s modular tile pack. Some players recommend making the game harder and more strategic by playing with fewer team members while others prefer to just jump straight in and kill as many zombies as soon as possible.
In many ways, finding the right horror game is a lot like choosing the right horror film. Do you prefer charismatic vampires to shambling zombies? Do you want to contend with traitorous “teammates” or take on unspeakable evil with true chums and a gun?
There are hundreds of horror board games out there which can provide straightforward slash and gore or have you strategising in an eerie atmosphere.
If you’re looking for more suspenseful gameplay then Mansions of Madness is a good option because its companion app brings in a lot of uncertainty. Alien: Nemesis is also good for keeping you on the edge of your seat due to its hidden traitor element. You just don’t know who you can trust…
Suspenseful horror board games rely more on what you don’t know about the villains and your co-players, so hidden identity and twists and turns of fortune are the elements you need to look out for.
For a more immersive experience, it’s hard to beat Mysterium and if you have younger players at the table with you, this game can be the next step along their horror journey. Mansions of Madness also offers an immersive experience with its app and stunningly creepy artwork.
Hako Onna is another immersive horror board game and the disc-stacking element really makes you feel as if you’re creeping around a mansion, trying not to wake up an especially nasty ghost.
We didn’t just pull these ten horrific board games off a shelf. We played some ourselves and we asked some of our scarier gamer chums for their own best picks. We also scoured lots of podcasts, reviews and gamer channels like The Discriminating Gamer to find the creme de la creme of terror-inducing games.
Horror board games aren’t just about gore, splatter and howling werewolves (although the genre wouldn’t be the same without them). In our list, we’ve tried to bring in as many different styles as possible, with suspense, hidden identity, existential threats from aliens and the occasional eerie ambience.
We also looked for games which are very replayable so that you can learn more each time you play or play the game with different sets of friends and family; remember, horror isn’t just for Halloween, it’s forever.
We don’t sell horror games, but we love all types and genres so, being the kind souls we are, we’ve given you some great advice so you can go off and explore for yourselves. Just promise us you’ll stay out of that basement, right?
When it comes to board games we’ll always recommend options with high-quality components so you can carry on gaming for years to come.
We offer free delivery throughout the UK, but if you need your gaming fun pronto you can choose our next day delivery service for £3.99 - we know how hard it can be to wait for your turn…
