Spiel des Jahres 2025 is around the corner! As with the previous five years, I’ll try to predict what games have the best shot at ending up on the longlist (aka recommendations) and the shortlist (aka nominations) when the jury announces their picks on May 20th.
As every year, I’ll let the algorithms speak, and I’ve doubled down on the path I’ve started last year when I put more focus on jury members’ reviews. Back then, I simply averaged all available reviews to obtain a proxy for the “jury review”. The major problem with this are of course the gaps in the data for missing reviews. Luckily, we have a method to fill those gaps in the form of our recommendation algorithm. So this year, I’ve put 50% of the weight on the individual recommendations for the 14 jury members and 50% on the “recommendendations to the jury”. This way, I was able to calculated a score for all eligible1 games. Our very own Kennerspiel score is then used to sort those into their respective list of the top 10 contenders for either award. As always, you can find the complete code on GitLab and the complete results here.
We have another year with some strong contenders. I think there’s one clear nomination (though it’s less clear on what list, more on that later), with the rest of the field pretty wide open. My predictions last year weren’t particularly good, so the only way is up… 📈
But without further ado, here are the favourite games to win Spiel des Jahres and Kennerspiel des Jahres 2025.
Candidates for Spiel des Jahres 2025
#1: The Gang
3–6 players, 20 minutes, 10+ years, medium light (1.7), 89% Spiel
Bet together the order of your hands in Texas Hold’em Poker to win together.
#2: Point of View: Lost Places
2–8 players, 60 minutes, 10+ years, light (1.0), 99% Spiel
A cooperative-communicative game series with different points of view for everyone.
#3: Tower Up
2–4 players, 30–45 minutes, 8+ years, medium light (1.9), 87% Spiel
Architects compete against one another to construct the best buildings in town.
#4: Castle Combo
2–5 players, 10–25 minutes, 10+ years, medium light (1.7), 86% Spiel
Draft people from the lower and upper city to create a valuable house.
#5: Chocolates
2–4 players, 15–20 minutes, 10+ years, light (1.0), 100% Spiel
Figure out as much as you can about your box of chocolates BEFORE tasting them!
#6: Slide
2–6 players, 15 minutes, 7+ years, light (1.2), 100% Spiel
Group numbers in your grid to make them disappear.
#7: Krakel Orakel
2–8 players, 30 minutes, 10+ years, light (1.1), 100% Spiel
Can you spot and reveal pictures in a tangle of lines?
#8: Agent Avenue
2–4 players, 10–20 minutes, 8+ years, light (1.4), 100% Spiel
A blend of strategic bluffing and set collection in a whimsical spy world.
#9: Quando
2–6 players, 15 minutes, 8+ years, light (1.0), 100% Spiel
Ditch cards from your hand as you aim to have the lowest score.
#10: Courtisans
2–5 players, 20–30 minutes, 8+ years, light (1.4), 91% Spiel
When the Queen holds her banquet, skullduggery is on the menu!
Candidates for Kennerspiel des Jahres 2025
#1: Bomb Busters
2–5 players, 30 minutes, 10+ years, medium light (2.0), 54% Kennerspiel
Players defuse bombs by deducing and cutting unseen wires of different values.
#2: The Lord of the Rings: Duel for Middle-earth
2 players, 30–45 minutes, 10+ years, medium light (2.1), 94% Kennerspiel
Play as the Fellowship or Sauron and attempt to determine the fate of Middle-earth.
#3: Faraway
2–6 players, 15–30 minutes, 10+ years, medium light (1.9), 67% Kennerspiel
Explore a mysterious land and fulfill quests on your way back.
#4: Blood on the Clocktower
6–21 players, 30–120 minutes, 15+ years, medium (3.0), 100% Kennerspiel
Deduce who the Demon is through logic and bluffing. Dead players still play.
#5: Apiary
1–5 players, 60–90 minutes, 14+ years, medium (3.0), 100% Kennerspiel
Hyper-intelligent bees take to outer space to build, explore, and grow.
#6: Wyrmspan
1–5 players, 90 minutes, 14+ years, medium (2.8), 100% Kennerspiel
Build a cavernous sanctuary for dragons of all shapes and sizes!
#7: Wonderland’s War
2–5 players, 45–125 minutes, 13+ years, medium (3.0), 100% Kennerspiel
The looking glass has shattered and war has come to Wonderland!
#8: Endeavor: Deep Sea
1–4 players, 60–120 minutes, 10+ years, medium (2.9), 100% Kennerspiel
Lead your research institute to explore ocean depths and publish your findings!
#9: SETI: Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence
1–4 players, 40–160 minutes, 14+ years, medium heavy (3.8), 100% Kennerspiel
Search for signs of alien life by launching probes and analyzing distant signals.
#10: The Fellowship of the Ring: Trick-Taking Game
1–4 players, 20 minutes, 10+ years, medium light (2.0), 75% Kennerspiel
Travel from the Shire and overcome every obstacle as a team.
My two cents
It’s time for my picks for the nominations. The algorithms determined the longlist predictions, but my gut feeling takes over from here on.
My predictions for nominees for Spiel des Jahres 2025
There’s at least five or six games amongst the predictions for the longlist that I could see being nominated, but I had to pick just three of them… 🤞
My predictions for nominees for Kennerspiel des Jahres 2025
Again, many more strong contenders than I could fit on the predictions list. Bomb Busters is the candidate everybody is talking about, and I too am fairly certain it’ll be nominated. Its Kennerspiel score is 54%, so I left it on the anthracite list, though personally I think it’ll end up on the red one.
Conclusion
Another year full of wonderful games – let’s enjoy being spoiled for choice until the trade wars dry up the supplies. 🙈
Also, let’s not forget Kinderspiel des Jahres – my daughters are now 4 and 5 years old, and we’ve already played through most of the back catalogue of past winners, so the whole family is looking forward to more great recommendations.
Stay tuned for the announcement on May 20th! 🤩
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As every year, it’s not straightforward to determine what games are eligible for the awards. Generally speaking, it’d be those games release between April 2024 and March 2025 into German retail. Hence, filtering by BGG release year will exclude games that were released earlier elsewhere, but only recently in Germany, and likewise let some games pass that have not seen a German release in that time window. I did my best to catch what I could, but there’s always some that get away. ↩︎