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No matter your taste, there’s a board game out there for you. The most successful ones blend elegant gameplay with strategic depth, allowing for accessibility and replayability without sacrificing a satisfying challenge. Then, of course, there are the games for the truly hardcore.
Board games have a bit of a reputation as being a bit of a time sink, especially if drinks or conversation are involved, but these particular titles — made by and for the most dedicated of hobbyists — can eat up an entire day or more. If you have one of these in your collection, plan far ahead if you want to see a game through.
What’s the longest board game you’ve played? Tell us in the comments below!
8 Diplomacy
via Renegade Game Studios
6+ Hours
With no dice, cards, or variance of any kind, Diplomacy is all about negotiation, alliances, and backstabbing. Much of the gameplay consists simply of making deals with other players, often pulling them into side rooms for private conversations before everyone locks in their moves and sees who kept their word.
All that leads to a tense game where moves on the board all take quite a long time. Add it all up, and the game’s printed estimate of 6 hours could actually be a generous guess.
7 Twilight Imperium
8+ Hours
Sci-fi epic Twilight Imperium has a bit of a reputation for its long play time, and it’s the first game lots of people think of when unending board games are mentioned. Its strategic gameplay, faction-specific abilities, and huge array of components make it daunting for newcomers, but also make it the enduring classic that hardcore board gamers have loved for decades.
Theoretically, a game of Twilight Imperium, with just three players who all know what they’re doing, could go as «quickly» as four hours, but let’s be honest; if you’re getting the gang together for a game of TI, you’re setting aside a weekend so that everyone can relearn the rules, and allowing ample time for breaks.
6 Paths Of Glory
via GMT Games
8+ Hours
GMT Games is known for deep historical strategy games, focusing on complex, intricate rules over flashy production values. Paths Of Glory, originally published in 1999, is a tabletop retelling of the First World War.
With its full map showing the Western and Eastern fronts, and beyond, Paths Of Glory challenges players to manage the entire war effort for their chosen faction. Much like the actual war, gameplay forces players into long, drawn-out stalemates until one gains the upper hand and seizes the advantage.
5 Europa Universalis
via Board Game Geek
60+ Hours
Now best known as Paradox’s grand strategy magnum opus, the PC title was originally based on a board game, released in 1993. Like its digital successor, Europa Universalis the world out of the Medieval Period and through to the Enlightenment.
While its playtime is listed as around 60 hours, everything we’ve seen from people who have actually played this behemoth suggest that it’s actually more. As a reposted review from 1997 notes, «Turns take several hours to complete and the game has 60 turns.» Given that each turn is divided into five complex phases, including a combat phase that simulates each campaign season, that’s not surprising.
Europa Universalis does have dozens of scenarios included, if (as is likely) the full 300-year campaign doesn’t fit into your schedule.
4 Terrible Swift Sword
via Board Game Geek
70+ Hours
TSR, the company that originally published Dungeons & Dragons, started out as a wargames company, and they were still in that business during D&D’s rise to fame in the ’70s. Their American Civil War title Terrible Swift Sword, which recreated the Battle Of Gettysburg, won an award for its tactical gameplay in 1976, but if you can get your hands on a copy today and want to try it for yourself, you’d better have a lot of time on your hands.
Terrible Swift Sword has some shorter scenarios, but it’s designed to be played as a full 60-70 hour battle representing the entire Battle Of Gettysburg. That’s right, if you play the full game, you’ll spend roughly as much time recreating Gettysburg as the soldiers did fighting it in 1863.
3 The Longest Day
via Board Game Geek
90+ Hours
Have you ever played a board game that included a tutorial? The Longest Day, Avalon Hill’s 1979 recreation of the Allied invasion of Normandy, has five scenarios designed to teach players the rules, just to get them ready to dive into the enormous campaign.
With seven boards and over 2600 counters, just setting up The Longest Day earns the game its name. If you and your friends are brave enough to storm the beaches with this retro wargame, its board challenges the Axis and Allied sides to vie for control of the entire Norman coastline, with period-accurate unit types on an enormous hex-based map.
2 World In Flames
100+ Hours
Of course, if just Normandy isn’t a grand enough scale for you, you can always fight the entire Second World War at the global level, and no, I’m not talking about Axis & Allies. Originally published in 1985 and getting a Collectors’ Edition in 2000, World In Flames is a military history nerd’s dream… or nightmare. Perhaps both at once.
It doesn’t have qutie as many components as The Longest Day, but World In Flames boasts strategic depth and complexity to give even the most dedicated board gamers a run for their money. Even if you don’t win, though, just making it to the end of a full World In Flames campaign is an achievement in itself.
1 The Campaign For North Africa
via Board Game Geek
1000+ Hours
If you know your board game trivia, you’re probably not at all surprised to find The Campaign For North Africa sitting comfortably in the top spot on this list. This unbelievably granular simulation of the African Theatre in the Second World War is infamous for its eye-popping play time, requiring a full-time setup over the course of months to conceivably complete.
What is it with WW2 games that makes designers want to draw them out like this?
The Campaign For North Africa recommends a group of ten players, with five players per side, dividing up duties to make sure that every turn runs smoothly. The game suggests having one player per side just to handle the air force, and another one to resolve combat. Logistics and supply all need to be tracked and accounted for. You could argue that this isn’t a board game, but a deconstruction of board games — a work of art.
An extremely long, drawn-out work of art.
