Zombies from old voodoo superstitions went through movies, comics and books. Board games are not exclusion. Even if zombies can’t eat our brains, they take place there forever. If your brains are also affected, you should play top 10 zombie board games. The only feature the games below have in common is zombies. Let’s start reviewing all the games one by one.
Top ten Zombie games
10. Earth Reborn
2-4 Players • Ages 13+ • 60 minutes to play
Earth Reborn is a board game showing the future of Earth after the apocalypse. Two feuding factions went out of their underground refuges. Everybody strives to eliminate the enemy and rule the world. The end justifies the means. Does the victory take turning corpses into zombies? No problem. Earth Reborn offers nine quests with different tasks. There is a possibility for 2-4 players to make their own maps and quests. Cool figurines of characters make the game wonderfully atmospheric.
9. Zpocalypse
2-4 Players • Ages 13+ • 100 minutes to play
The game is a fusion of war strategy and zombie action. A small group of survivors relocates across a post-apocalyptic wasteland for supplies and guns. A player of Zpocalypse builds fortifications and kills zombies. These actions help to achieve the victory. The rules of the game are pretty complex, but their complexity enlivens the game.
8. Resident Evil Deck Building Game
2-4 Players • Ages 13+ • 30 minutes to play
Resident Evil has lots of fans all over the world and needs no introduction. In this game, you can choose your favorite character of Resident Evil and start defeating legions of dead. For example, it may be Chris Redfield, Jill Valentine, or Albert Wesker. Every player starts with a basic weapon set. During the game, players build their decks to have everything required to survive.
7. Dead of Winter: A Crossroads Game
2-5 Players • Ages 13+ • 100 minutes to play
Players of this game are survivors in a small colony of people. They have to fight against zombies in a hostile winter world. The most interesting in the game is its psychological aspect. Nobody will object: in the last days of Earth, people will be crazier than ever. That’s why every player has a secret objective in addition to the common needs of the colony. Sometimes this objective can harm the rest of human survivors. Dead of Winter can end with common defeat, common victory or a victory of one player.
6. Zombie Fluxx
2-5 Players • Ages 8+ • 100 minutes to play
Zombie Fluxx is a zombie card game with permanently changing rules. There are action cards, new rule cards, and new objective cards make the game completely unpredictable. For example, you may get the task to gather a zombie baseball team to win. Changes in Zombie Fluxx never stop. It is not scary and recommended to younger players than a zombie games usually do.
5. Munchkin Zombies
3-6 Players • Ages 12+ • 30-60 minutes to play
Munchkin Zombies is an inverted zombie board game. It is full of usual humor and sarcasm of Steve Jackson and crazy illustration of John Kovalic. It this game, you are not a fearless zombie hunter but a hungry zombie. In the entire Munchkin series, you are a hero who opens doors, kills monsters and gains treasures. Here you are a monster. Open doors, kill people and gain essential zombie treasures. Brains. The game is very popular among Munchkin fans. Besides usual Munchkin abilities, you can involve zombie cards in a battle. Steve Jackson has released five parts of Munchkin Zombies. All of them are bestsellers.
4. Last night on Earth: The Zombie Game
2-6 Players • Ages 12+ • 90 minutes to play
This board game is semi-cooperative. 1 or 2 players control hordes of zombies. Others play for human beings. Thus, zombies are no longer stupid and predictable brain eaters. They have their strategy. It makes them unstoppable. Are you ready to challenge them now? Last night on Earth has a few expansions including the marvelous Timber Peak. In this expansion, survivors left their city. They hid in a small Timber Peak town in the mountain wilderness. The expansion offers a set of new boards. You can find over 130 new cards and six new heroes. There are also some new scenarios like spreading and fire breaking out.
3. Zombicide
1-6 Players • Ages 13+ • 60 minutes to play
It is the most exciting zombie game for a fan of Commandos, Desperados and all that jazz. The scene of Zombicide includes city streets and buildings. You may play single and control all the survivors or cooperate with other players. Every human survivor has unique abilities and will have more of them with more zombies killed. Your game style should be different with every new character. Zombie army consists of a few types of zombies. There are fatties, runners, walkers and bosses. Every zombie acts different, but most of them follow each noise you make. You may kill every zombie on the map, but there will be new ones to come.
2. Zombie Dice
2-8 Players • Ages 10+ • 10-20 minutes to play
The rules are very simple. Each player shakes the cup with thirteen dice with only three pictures: shotgun, traces, brains. The object of the game is to roll thirteen brains. However, if you roll three shotguns, you lose all the brains that you have. Somebody could say: “It’s too monotonous!” OK. What will you do if you are as drunk as a fiddler? What rules will you be able to learn? If you play Zombie Dice, there is nothing to learn. Trembling hands are even helpful to roll the dice. This is the reason. This game wins the second prize, for it’s indispensable for a drinking company!
1. Smash Up
2-4 Players • Ages 12+ • 30-60 minutes to play
Smash Up is not just another zombie game. It’s the game of total destruction. Zombies are just one of Smash Up teams. You can also become a Wizard, a Ninja, a Pirate, a Trickster, a Robot, an Alien and even a Dinosaur! Each team has its way to deal with cards. Your objective is to destroy so-called bases better than your opponents do. Each action is good to win. You can teleport your opponents to a wrong base, ‘animate’ cards from the discard deck or just destroy them with lasers and dinosaurs. Everything depends on your chosen team and the cards you have. But that’s not the only reason for being the best zombie board game. There are many expansions with new teams. Each on has its specific topic and more teams. ‘The Obligatory Cthulhu Set’ adds new abilities including madness; ‘Science Fiction Double Feature’ offers four new teams. ‘Geek and Sundry Geeks’ includes a team of Geek & Sundry channel characters. ‘Smash Up II’ includes Cossacks riding bears, steampunks, ghosts and carnivorous plants.
Almost everyone can find a zombie tabletop game for himself in this list. What’s about you? Maybe, your favorite zombie survival board game is out of this top? Feel free to leave your comment!
I can’t take this list seriously when Smash Up is number 1 and both it and a Zombie Fluxx is higher than Dead of Winter. If you ate going to do this, at least put Magic the Gathering at number 1. It has zombies and is way better than Smash Up.
I love Smash Up and Zombicide! I will be playing Dead of Winter this weekend as I haven’t tried it. 😉
Well, as you Dead of Winter?
The best of those you posted is LNoE, Very B movie feelings.
You have to take a look on this one
https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/198985/day-night-z
Looks incredible.