Happy new year to everyone! I hope the coming year brings you lots of happiness. I also hope it brings you new board games, which is almost the same thing. The big question is: which games should you look out for? Here are a few 2026 releases that look especially interesting to me. If you have been reading this blog for a long time, you might notice that this year’s list is a bit longer than usual. There are simply so many fascinating games scheduled for release this year!
As always, please do not treat this as a shopping list, either for yourself or for me. Your personal taste in games and your own judgment about how many new games you want to buy will decide what ends up on your shelf and, hopefully, on your table.
After that reminder, let’s get to the games. Since all of them are set in human history, they are ordered from the most ancient time period to the most recent.
Triumvir
1-3 players, up to 90 minutes
Once the greatest Roman politicians and generals grew beyond the limits of the republican power-sharing agreement, the Republic was bound to fall. Yet it was not certain that it would fall to Caesar. In fact, two of his associates and rivals, Pompey and Crassus, might have taken the top spot if they had played their cards better.
Triumvir puts players in the roles of the three mightiest power brokers in the final years of the Roman Republic. They will try to use their wealth, popularity, and military strength to achieve political success. This game adapts the negotiation mechanic from the previous collaboration between Geoff Engelstein and Mark Herman. Whoever settles the issues in the senate in their favor and handles the challenges in the rebellious provinces the best is poised to become the First Man in Rome forever.
The game is expected to be released in March.
Neither King Nor God (Limited Pilot Edition)
4 players, 60-120 minutes
I have a fondness for the early modern period. This was a time when many old certainties in Europe were shattered by revolutionary new developments, from the printing press to the discovery of America and the Reformation.
Neither King Nor God focuses on the struggle for military, religious, and commercial supremacy in Western Europe. The four main figures are the Pope, the Holy Roman Emperor, and the Kings of England and France. Players send their courtiers to the big cities of Europe. These courtiers range from merchants and generals to assassins, each with their own action. They form a stack in each city. Once all courtiers are placed, each city’s stack is resolved from top to bottom, meaning the last courtier placed is the first one to act. There are many tactical decisions about when to trigger a courtier, and since they are placed face-down, there is also a good deal of bluffing.
I had the chance to play Neither King Nor God at last year’s SPIEL in Essen. Our Holy Roman Emperor tried to spread Protestantism in Germany and fought a war against the Pope for control of Venice, while France and England expanded their commercial networks and clashed over Normandy. Everyone had a great time!
The limited pilot edition can be ordered now and will ship in mid- or late January. The full epic edition is planned for release in October 2026.
1848: The Springtime of Nations
2 players, 150-180 minutes
The European revolutions of 1848 and 1849 are generally considered failures. After all, the ancient regimes returned to power everywhere except in France, and even there the Second Republic was soon overthrown. Yet for months, it looked like all of Europe could shed the old order in favor of liberalism, nation-states, and maybe even democracy. Even when the revolutionaries were defeated, they changed how politics was played. From then on, politics was conducted in public, with parliaments, parties, and newspapers, and the forces of liberalism and nationalism had to be considered by even the most conservative governments.
Despite the impact of these revolutions, very few games have covered them. Jules Félisaz’s 1848 seeks to fix that in an ambitious way, covering the political, military, intellectual, and social dimensions of the revolutions across Europe. The game uses a mix of proven card-driven game mechanics, adding its own twists where appropriate.
The game is expected to be released in March.
Peace 1905
1-3 players, 30-45 minutes
Let us not say there are only wargames on this list. Look, here is a peace game!
Making peace is generally a complex business, and so it was in the case of the Russo-Japanese War of 1904 and 1905. The Japanese, emboldened by their military success, demanded a large financial indemnity and the cession of Sakhalin. The Russian tsar refused to consider either. Yet with revolution rampant in Russia and the Japanese government close to financial collapse, both sides needed to end the war. Their delegates at the US-mediated peace conference of Portsmouth had to figure out how to balance peace, national interest, and saving face.
In the classic two-player mode, the players represent the delegates of Japan and Russia who negotiate over Japan’s demands. Their hands of cards represent diplomatic approaches. More aggressive stances are more likely to carry the day on any given issue, but the more lopsided a round of negotiations is, the more tensions will rise on the side of the loser. If they are pushed too hard, they will resort to war.
Other player counts see US president Theodore Roosevelt join as either a third player or the solo role. In either case, Roosevelt is an “honest broker” whose goal is to find an equitable resolution to the conflict.
Peace 1905 awaits its Kickstarter campaign in the second quarter of 2026. The game will be released in late 2026.
Hammer and Sickle: Hunger and Utopia in the Russian Civil War, 1918-1921
1-4 players, 120-180 minutes
Hammer and sickle are, of course, the symbols of communism. Yet ideology aside, they speak of the material basis of modern societies: the food that everyone needs to eat, and the industrial production that is required for everything from building houses to waging war.
This economy underlies Hammer and Sickle, a multiplayer treatment of the Russian Civil War after the October Revolution. The industrial cities, marked by hammers, produce Firepower, provided that their workers are fed with Food from the rural provinces in the south. Otherwise, the workers start to rebel.
The result is a delicate balance between Food and Firepower, made more difficult by the factions’ asymmetries. The Bolsheviks, for example, have easy access to a lot of hammers but might find themselves short of sickles. The opposite might be true for the White Army operating from the south.
Alex Knight has shown his ability to turn a complex political-military struggle into a compelling board game with the Spanish Civil War in the intriguing Land and Freedom. I am sure he will do the same with Hammer and Sickle.
The release is expected not before the third quarter of 2026, which might turn into 2027, but I wanted to include the game here anyway because it just seems so fascinating.
Lenin’s Legacy
1-2 players, 20-40 minutes
Matthias Cramer has got the range. He has designed great epics like Weimar: The Fight for Democracy, but he is also a master of the short form. His game Watergate is a knife fight in a phone booth, and Lenin’s Legacy promises to be cut from the same cloth.
Vladimir Ilyich Lenin was the dominant figure of the new Bolshevik government of Russia, but his health started to fail him soon after the October Revolution. Behind the scenes, his lieutenants jockeyed for position to succeed him. The two likeliest candidates were Leon Trotsky and Joseph Stalin. While they differed in their politics and their power bases, they had one thing in common: their drive to take power.
Lenin’s Legacy lets its players fill their shoes and struggle over the army, the party, and the regions and politicians of the Soviet Union in a card-driven game with a twist. Almost all cards are selected from an open market. The players hold only one card each, but they can gamble on playing the opponent’s card without knowing what it is.
The game is expected to be released in March.
Night Witches
1-2 players, 30-45 minutes
Many of the games in this post are very zoomed-out, grand strategic affairs. The counters you push move armies, the cards you play shake nations. Yet there is also something very charming about games operating on the micro level, and you get exactly that with Night Witches.
You are on the Eastern Front of World War II, serving in the all-women 588th Night Bomber Regiment of the Soviet Air Forces. You have no more than two biplanes at your command in every mission, and they are old, slow, and vulnerable. Still, your goal is to harass the invading German forces with these low-flying, hard-to-detect, and hard-to-detect craft every night. You want to do as much damage as you can, or at least wear the enemy out with constant nocturnal attacks, and make it back safe.
You can play each mission separately or in a ten-mission campaign which allows you to carry over upgrades. You can play solo or as a two-player cooperative effort.
Night Witches awaits its Kickstarter campaign in the second quarter of 2026. The game will be released in late 2026.
The Berlin Airlift
1-4 players, 60-480 minutes
This game has been long in the making. I have referenced it as ready for pre-order eight years ago, and have been intrigued by its premise since then. The Berlin Airlift was the largest airborne logistics operation ever. For it to render the Berlin Blockade on the ground void, hundreds of planes had to arrive every day in Berlin with fuel, food, spare parts, and medical supplies. This had to be done notwithstanding the limited infrastructure, the often rough weather, and every so often, Soviet interference.
This immense logistical task fell to the US Air Force and the Royal Air Force, each of which is represented by two “squadrons” in the game. The players strive to contribute the most to the effort with their squadron, but their internal competition sometimes has to take the backseat when a joint effort is required to confront Soviet interference or keep the morale of the Berlin population up.
John Poniske’s original design has been taken on by Terry Simo. The Berlin Airlift is now ready for production. Publication is expected for the third quarter of 2026.
