Here are the best digital board games to play online. If you can’t play board games together this Christmas, then digital board games are the next best thing.
It’s going to be a different kind of Christmas, with many of us unable to spend it with the people we’d like to. However, a silver lining to this most disruptive of years has been that everyone’s been forced to become more tech-savvy. Chances are that now even your grandparents and reclusive uncles living in log cabins have come to grips with the magic of webcams and Zoom calls. A natural extension of the above skillset is playing digital board games online. Plenty of these games do a great job of recreating the homely experience of bundling around a table with friends or family this Christmas, competing or cooperating with each other in pursuit of victory. So we’ve put together a list of digital board games (and sites to play them on), which will let you play everything from Chess to modern board games, party games and even D&D remotely. If the people joining you for an online board game session have tightened their purse-strings in the wake of Christmas shopping splurges, then Tabletopia is a frugal and accessible option. The site has over 1,500 board games, ranging from classics like Chess and digital card packs, all the way through to modern games like Secret Hitler, Carcassonne and the excellent birdwatching card game Wingspan. Certain games will require the host to grab a subscription plan (starting from $5 a month, cancel anytime), but once they have that then other players can join their games for free via a URL link. Tabletop Simulator is part freeform board game simulator, part 3D sandbox where you can either sit down and take your board games seriously or just flip the whole table over, sending pieces flying. The possibilities are endless. You can play classics like Chess and Mahjong, grab newer board games like Scythe and Wingspan as paid DLC, or dive into the world of custom player-made games, which include real games like Catan and Secret Hitler as well as all-new creations. Only one person needs to own a DLC for others to join, and if your friends are reluctant to buy the base game you can always hook them into your PC via Parsec, which lets you stream your local PC games for online players to join — only one copy required! The onset of the global pandemic meant that many a lengthy Dungeons & Dragons campaign got put on pause.
