It is January 2026 and do you know what that means? It is time for another round of awards to be handed out to the games that made their presence known in the Board Game Rankings in the year 2025. As before, I will be considering two publishing years of games but all of the rankings that determine the winners happened in 2025. Let me refresh you on the categories and sub categories.

• Hotness Awards - games published in 2025 and ranked in 2025 are considered for this award. Knowing the games people are really excited about when they release is deserving of an award. These games will have a chance to win the Game of the Year the following year. There are two awards in this category:
  • Most Popular - games from the current publishing year cohort that were ranked the most times.
  • New Game Hotness - games from the current publishing year cohort that had the highest ranking score.
• Game of the Year Awards - games published in 2024 and ranked in 2025 are considered for this award. This is mainly to allow all games in a given publishing year to have the same amount of time to be ranked but it also has the side effect of allowing the hotness bump to shrink a bit. There are two awards in this category:
  • Most Popular - games from the previous publishing year cohort that were ranked the most times.
  • Game of the Year - games from the previous publishing year cohort that had the highest ranking score.

Are we clear? I’ll just assume we are and move on to the awards.

Hotness Awards - Class of 2025

2025 Most Popular

Finspan

Get more ranking details about Finspan Read more about Finspan on BGG

2025 New Game Hotness

The Elder Scrolls: Betrayal of the Second Era

Get more ranking details about The Elder Scrolls: Betrayal of the Second Era Read more about The Elder Scrolls: Betrayal of the Second Era on BGG

Game of the Year Awards - Class of 2024

2024 Most Popular

Harmonies

To be noted: Harmonies also won the Hotness Most Popular award when it was eligible last year. Congrats to Harmonies for winning the double crown.

Get more ranking details about Harmonies Read more about Harmonies on BGG

2024 Game of the Year

SETI: Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence

Get more ranking details about SETI: Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence Read more about SETI: Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence on BGG

To all of you who use the Ranking Engine to rank your games, thank you! It is your rankings that end up handing our these awards, so these are really your awards. I just announce them.

See you next year!

As always, if you have comments or questions, please contact me!