My game shelf has a split personality. On one side sits my carefully organized video game collection—chronologically arranged by console, with special editions and imports given prime real estate at eye level. On the other side is my equally beloved but considerably more chaotic board game collection, boxes of all shapes and sizes crammed together like a cardboard jigsaw puzzle. But there’s a strange middle ground, a DMZ where these two worlds collide: my growing collection of board games based on video games.
It started innocently enough back in 2005 when I spotted a World of Warcraft board game at my local game shop. “Huh,” I thought, “how the hell do you turn an MMORPG into a board game?” Curiosity and about sixty bucks later, I was lugging home a box the size of a small suitcase. My roommate at the time, Trevor, took one look at the monstrosity and said, “We’re going to need more beer.” He wasn’t wrong.
Converting video games to tabletop experiences is a tricky business. What works on a screen doesn’t always translate well to cardboard and plastic. Real-time action becomes turn-based strategy. Immersive digital worlds become stylized game boards. Complex AI systems become decks of cards and dice rolls. Some adaptations pull off this magic trick beautifully. Others… well, let’s just say they should have remained in the digital realm.
The DOOM board game (the 2016 version, not the older one) is probably my favorite successful adaptation. It somehow manages to capture the frantic, demon-slaughtering energy of the video game while acknowledging the inherent limitations of the tabletop format. Instead of trying to replicate the first-person shooter experience—which would be ridiculous—it leans into tactical combat and creates tension through clever card play. My buddy Carlos, who’s logged hundreds of hours in the digital version, was initially skeptical when I pulled it out during game night. “This can’t possibly work,” he insisted. Three hours later, he was standing on my couch, triumphantly waving a BFG card in the air while making explosion noises. Mission accomplished.
Civilization is another adaptation that gets it right, though in a completely different way. The Sid Meier’s Civilization: A New Dawn board game understands that it can’t possibly include every feature from the digital version without requiring a 12-hour playtime and a 300-page rulebook. Instead, it distills the essence of Civilization—technology development, expansion, different paths to victory—into a streamlined experience that feels familiar to video game fans while working beautifully as a board game. It’s not a direct port; it’s a clever reimagining.
The key to successful video game adaptations seems to be understanding the difference between theme and mechanics. Some designers get so caught up in recreating specific video game mechanics that they forget they’re working in an entirely different medium. It’s like trying to make a movie adaptation of a novel by simply filming someone reading the book aloud. The best adaptations capture the spirit, the world, and the core decisions that make the video game compelling, then rebuild them using tools that make sense for tabletop play.
On the flip side, there are the disappointments—the games that had me excited during the unboxing but left me deflated after the first play. The Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood of Venice game looks amazing on the table, with detailed miniatures and gorgeous art that faithfully recreates the video game aesthetic. But the gameplay? It’s a slog. Stealth mechanics that feel intuitive with a controller become tedious exercises in token management. What should feel like a fluid parkour experience instead feels like filling out paperwork. “I could have completed three assassination contracts in the actual game in the time it took us to set this up,” my friend Lisa pointed out after we abandoned our second attempt halfway through.
The Resident Evil 2 board game falls into a similar trap. It looks like Resident Evil, with familiar characters and monsters, but it doesn’t feel like Resident Evil. The tension, the resource management, the genuine fear—all diluted into a rather generic dungeon-crawl experience. My nephew Jake, a hardcore RE fan, was initially excited when I brought it out during his visit last Thanksgiving. By the time we were hunting for the third key card, he was checking his phone under the table. When a teenager would rather scroll through TikTok than play a board game based on one of his favorite video game franchises, something has gone seriously wrong.
The pacing issue is perhaps the biggest challenge in these adaptations. Video games can maintain tension through real-time action, immediate feedback, and seamless progression. Board games, by nature, involve more stopping and starting—checking rules, taking turns, setting up new scenarios. The Dark Souls board game struggles with this. The video game’s punishing difficulty feels rewarding because of the tight control you have over your character and the immediate retry when you fail. In the board game, that difficulty just feels punishing, especially when dying means resetting entire sections and going through the same motions again. The difficulty balance that feels so perfectly calibrated in the video game becomes an exercise in frustration around the table.
That’s not to say complex video games can’t make great board games. The Fallout board game does an admirable job of capturing the open-world exploration feel of the digital version, even though “open world” and “board game” seem fundamentally at odds. It achieves this by focusing on narrative discovery and player choice rather than trying to recreate the moment-to-moment gameplay of wandering the wasteland. The exploration mechanics give you that same sense of “what’s over that hill?” curiosity that makes the video games so addictive. My friend Michelle, who’s never touched a Fallout video game, actually ended up purchasing Fallout 4 after enjoying the board game version at one of our game nights. That’s the kind of crossover success that shows the adaptation is doing something right.
Licensed artwork and components play a huge role in these adaptations too, though they’re something of a double-edged sword. Good production values can help bridge the gap between digital and physical experiences, making the tabletop version feel like a legitimate extension of the video game rather than a cash grab. The Portal: Uncooperative Cake Acquisition Game doesn’t try to recreate the physics puzzles of the video game (which would be impossible), but its high-quality components and pitch-perfect humor make it feel authentically “Portal” despite the completely different gameplay.
However, sometimes it feels like publishers are counting on the licensed artwork and recognizable characters to carry what is otherwise a mediocre game design. I won’t name names, but I’ve bought more than a few video game adaptations that turned out to be generic card or dice games with a thin veneer of familiar IP slapped on top. The Street Fighter deck-building game comes to mind—it could have been about literally anything, but they put Ryu and Chun-Li on the cards and called it a day. My game group played it exactly once before it was banished to the “maybe I’ll trade this someday” shelf in my closet.
Cooperative gameplay is another interesting aspect of these adaptations. Many video games are single-player experiences, but board games tend to shine with multiple players. Smart adaptations like the XCOM board game turn this potential disconnect into a strength, creating team-based experiences where each player takes on a different role within the familiar video game framework. The app integration in that particular game also helps bridge the digital/analog divide, maintaining some of the tension and unpredictability of the video game while still functioning primarily as a tabletop experience.
I’ve found that the most successful video game board game adaptations aren’t trying to replace or replicate the digital experience. They’re offering a complementary experience in the same universe, with familiar characters and themes but gameplay that’s been thoughtfully redesigned for the strengths of the tabletop medium. The Civilization board game doesn’t make me want to play the video game less; it makes me appreciate the franchise as a whole more. The victory conditions are familiar enough to evoke the digital game while being streamlined for a satisfying tabletop session.
Introducing video game fans to board game adaptations of their favorite titles can be tricky. There’s often an initial excitement (“They made a board game version of THIS?”), followed by a period of adjustment (“Wait, that’s not how it works in the video game…”), and finally either acceptance of the new interpretation or rejection if the adaptation fails to capture what they loved about the original. I’ve learned to set expectations carefully: “This isn’t exactly like playing the video game, but it captures some of the same feelings in a different way.”
My living room has been the site of both triumphant adaptation successes and dismal failures. There was the epic Gears of War board game session that ended with my normally reserved coworker Steve literally roaring with triumph as he chainsawed the final boss card in half (we had to tape it back together afterward—sorry, future buyers if I ever sell that game). And then there was the awkward silence after we realized we’d spent 45 minutes setting up the Starcraft board game only to find the actual gameplay tedious and confusing. “Anyone want to just play the video game instead?” my friend Ryan finally suggested. We were packed up and online within minutes.
The trend of adapting video games to tabletop formats isn’t slowing down. Each year brings new announcements, some exciting (I’m cautiously optimistic about the upcoming God of War card game) and some baffling (did we really need a Five Nights at Freddy’s monopoly?). As a fan of both mediums, I’ll keep taking chances on these cardboard interpretations of digital worlds. When they work, they offer a unique way to experience familiar universes with friends around a table instead of alone in front of a screen. And when they don’t—well, at least the miniatures might be useful in D&D.
