Top 20 Most Underrated Board Games (2023) #boardgames

Top 20 Board Games That Are Underrated 2023
This is Michael's top 20 games that are underrated for the year 2023. This will now be part of a new series top 10 board games lists. Each video will showcase 20 board games. We will give our ranking and a small summary of the game. We got this idea from watching other YouTube Creators. We hope you enjoy this series!

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Chapters:

00:00 Intro to Top 20 Most Underrated Board Games!
00:27 Honorable Mentions
00:59 20 A Gem
01:39 19 Building Castles in France
02:36 18 Pirates!
04:06 17 Engines, Gears, and Gizmos
05:20 16 Better Than Monopoly
07:08 15 Small Racing Game
08:40 14 Vikings!
10:11 13 Customizing Dice
11:07 12 NASCAR!
12:41 11 Animals and Habitats
14:19 10 Trade Build Settle
15:50 9 The Best Tribe Wins
17:29 8 I Challenge YOU!
20:06 7 Plus A Card, Plus An Action!
21:44 6 More Pirates!
23:25 5 Put The Pedal To The Metal
26:22 4 Bike Racing
27:38 3 The Best Game of All Time!
29:36 2 Survive The Island!
31:25 Another Racing Game?

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[grog]

Snow tails is very underrated. It's one of the best racing games. It's very tactical while remaining fun. I think the thematic card play is confusing for first time players though.

[maachew]

Merchants and Muraders is amazing! One of my favorite games ever, needs more love

[rolfvansoelen]

I agree 100% with Thunder Alley, the mechanisms in that game are so clever and puzzly. Even with 2 players this is a tense game. I also love Formula Racing. This is Knizia at his best, presenting a lot of fun with simple and elegant rules. Hilarious moments guaranteed. Heat i also love, however I don't consider that a 10 out of 10, more 8 out of 10.

[longtimeninerfan]

Interesting list. I haven’t played Catan enough to give it a thorough assessment. I do like it. But currently, I would lean on the side of it being below the 500 ranking on BGG, probably about where it is currently. Have you tried any of its expansions? I figured your #6 would be on this list from the way you gave it a high rating in your top 100. One game that I think is underrated is Xi’an. Its rulebook is not as good as it should be, so that holds it back. Also, it must not have had a wide release, so it only has 725 ratings which lowers it too. Currently it is rated at 7.209, but I think it deserves to move closer to an 8, for a fun strategy game that takes less than an hour to set up and play once the rules are learned. It is one of those games that typically you wish you had just one or two more turns.

[Zematus]

My kids love splendor. Gosh, more than all the other board games. A lot of these games are high frequency in high rated lists and I would attribute a lot of the low points that bring the averages down to how many people rank it. As for Catan... who decided to make the highest frequency number the activator for the thief? Too much thievin'! Coup, with the variant rules and called assassinations, is an amazing game. I liked Eminent Domain with the expansions better than Dominion.

[Berndr]

Interesting choice of games, mostly older games, and even classics so I feel that rating has nothing to do with the game quality it is rather to do with novelty, these games you listed I played 10 years ago so much I totally burned it out ... for example, I am not sure I will ever play another game of Catan even tough 10 years ago I absulutly loved it ... I burned it out ... but yeah I agree with what you are saying!

[tzatzatza]

Bro got a game to add to your list: mille bornes.

[TravistheGREAT]

Underrated Games, starts with Splendor and Carcassone....

[marccote]

Some of those game are in the bgg top 50 … feast for odin might be top 25 to … not very underrated

[mkitten]

I'm sorry, but how on earth is a game in the BGG top 100 even close to underrated (let alone 4 or 5 if we count the honourable mention)? If we were to make the argument that the difference between our own personal rating and the BGG average made a game underrated, then pretty much all our own personal favourites would be underrated by that logic.

It feels very misleading to put the most popular game by one of the most popular designers out there on a list for underrated games (and yeah, I agree with you that Le Havre is an excellent game and I too prefer it to Feast - but the fact that it's still in the top 100 despite being 15 years old is a testament to how highly regarded it is). Generally, when people say underrated they are thinking about games that people don't talk about, games that got overlooked or unfairly critisized. At least if you're going to go by BGG standard, then maybe filter out the first couple of hundred rankings? And even then, keep age into consideration. Heat came out just last year and is one of only two games from 2022 to break the top 100. It takes time for them to rise up.

As for what I would consider underrated:

Atheneum: Mystic Library - I would make the case that it's mainly overlooked (though my rating is certainly significantly higher than the average), as it's ranked in the mid 3000s (only roughly 700 people have even given it a rating, making its geek rating vastly lower), such an excellent card drafting/tile laying game with a fun whimsical setting. I never hear anyone talk about it, and it's one of my go-to end of the game night games. It's fast and smooth and really deserves more attention from people.

[ianwng]

agree with black fleet. i have fun everytime. dont understand why nobody cares about it.

[jackabbott]

Personally I'd consider anything in the top 1000 to be pretty well respected. Here are 10 that are all ranked well under 1000 that i think should be higher

1 Bridges of Shangri-la 
2 Via Nebula
3 Theseus: The Dark Orbit
4 Java (Reprinted as Cuzco)
5 Alien Artifacts 
6 Council of 4
7 Axio
8 Ekö 
9 Uchronia 
10 Meduris

[tombeullens]

Abyss is the nr 1 most underrated game for me... and sorry but Heat definitly the most overrated 😊

[WhatsDaveUpTo]

i dont think you know what underrated means. All of these games are rated as as some of the best games ever made

[SAUPAYANMAZUMDAR]

you rate CoB 8 and BGG rates it 8.1 . how exactly is it underrated? not to mention it's ranked 17

[dennieheidemann]

I think you meant to say top 5 underrated games.

[chriswalker]

You are making a list of the hottest board games ever?

[chriswalker]

BGG score are by leftist and hardcore euro player