10 best sci-fi tabletop games

If you’re as big a sci-fi fan as I am, then you know that absolutely everything is better with spaceships and laser beams. There’s always been a healthy supply of sci-fi stories, movies, and video games, but sometimes it can be hard to find a spacefaring board game for your next tabletop night. 

Years of living with sci-fi and board game obsessions have left me with a decent list of great games that manage to convey everything I love about the genre. Some of these are massive undertakings that only the most dedicated gaming groups should attempt, and others are perfect for getting your kids involved. There’s a sci-fi game out there for everyone, and hopefully, a few of these will be perfect for you. 

Catan: Starfarers

Catan: Starfarers is a great starting place for sci-fi gaming, assuming that you’re already familiar with games like Settlers of Catan. The two games are extremely similar, but Starfarers puts more of an emphasis on expansion and exploration than trading. The game replaces ports from Settlers with a galactic market, and it also introduces NPCs and bonuses that can be collected by pushing deeper into space. Beyond that, it’s the same building and trading game that you already know and love, which makes it one of my biggest recommendations on this list. 

Twilight Imperium

Twilight Imperium is an immersive and utterly massive board game about building up a spacefaring empire. It’s also not for the faint of heart. The game works best with 4-6 players, and it can easily run over 6 hours. The goal is to progress your empire in various ways to collect Victory Points, and in the process, you might end up crushing a few of your fellow competitors. You need a dedicated group of friends to tackle a run, but if you’re a fan of 4X games, this is the tabletop experience of your dreams. 

Voidfall 

Voidfall is another 4X game that isn’t quite as time-consuming as Twilight Imperium, and that offers a bit more playstyle flexibility. The game’s premise is that a terrible entity called the Voidborn has erupted into the heart of a galactic empire, and the empire’s surviving Houses must fight it off. The game can be played solo or competitively, but the cooperative mode is where it really shines. There’s just nothing quite like building up armies and vanquishing epic space aliens with your friends. 

Terraforming Mars

You and up to four friends can become corporate overlords working to profit through humanity’s advancement in Terraforming Mars. This is a resource management game where you expand your planetary territory to increase the production of valuable materials like oxygen and electricity. At the same time, you can pick up special project cards to create even more valuable technology. If you’re looking for fewer space battles and a more grounded sci-fi experience, then this is definitely the game for you.

Nemesis

Nemesis is a heavy board game with a narrower focus than games like Twilight Imperium and Voidfall. Players take control of a character on a stranded spaceship that’s been infested with a terrifying alien creature. As a group, you need to pursue various goals to survive, but sometimes characters will find themselves at odds with each other thanks to their individual goals. Nemesis is a semi-cooperative experience that thrusts you into a survival/horror experience right in line with the Alien franchise, and it’s great for fans of board games with awesome miniatures.  

Cosmic Encounter

Managing a space empire is no easy task, but Cosmic Encounter transforms you into an imperial decision-maker with a fairly rules-light approach. You choose an alien race, each with a special power, to control, and then you have to split your attention between defending your various homeworlds and expanding into enemy territory. As you move your units between planets, you’ll feel a bit like you’re playing a game of Risk, but the alien powers add a whole new twist to the formula and give the game a wild amount of replayability. 

Dune Imperium

It’s no surprise that some of the best sci-fi franchises lend themselves to great board game adaptations. Dune Imperium lets you fight for control of the spice against up to three other players. On its face, Dune Imperium is a worker placement game, but it mixes in deckbuilding elements to inject a different layer of strategy into the experience. You’ll be using cards to move your Agents around the map while also gathering resources that allow you to damage your opponents and add to your deck. It’s a great tabletop experience, but the digital version of the game is almost just as fun. 

Firefly: The Game

There are several different Firefly board games, but the best is easily Firefly: The Game. The game puts you into the cockpit of your very own ship and tasks you with traveling throughout the ‘Verse to pick up jobs and crew members. You need to build up enough cash to keep your crew afloat, but traveling runs the risk of attracting the attention of the Alliance or Reavers, who are really your main enemies here. Any sci-fi fans can appreciate this game, but it’s definitely geared at people who are invested in the Firefly aesthetic. 

First Rat

On to a game that’s perfect for families and also includes a single-player mode. First Rat is a bit like a sci-fi Mouse Trap, but here the rodents are running the show. You play as a group of rats that dream of one day walking on the surface of the moon (it’s made of cheese, haven’t you heard?). Players race to the rats’ launchpad, collecting resources along the way, which they can use to gather more rats for their cause and progress the space race even faster. 

Star Realms

Star Realms is a deck-building game that’s designed for 2-6 players. You and your opponents have access to a shop filled with ships from various factions, and you take turns building up your fleet while trying to blast each other to bits. Even with more than two players, games move pretty quickly, and because you build your deck as you go, no two games are ever alike. This works as a fantastic introduction to deckbuilding for players who’ve never gotten to experience it, and there’s a digital version of the game that’s available for those times when your tabletop group can’t get together.