16 Tabletop Games That Take The Longest To Complete (& How Long They Take)

Highlights

• Not all board games are long and boring – there are plenty of short and sweet options available on the market.
• Many long games are intentionally designed to offer epic experiences in historical settings, catering to different player preferences.
• The reputation of board games being outdated is unfounded; with a variety of games to suit different group dynamics and gaming preferences.

A common misconception about board games is that they’re all super long and boring. That mostly isn’t true. With there being plenty of short and sweet board games on the market, that reputation has to come from somewhere. It’s mostly Monopoly‘s fault, but that doesn’t even crack the top 20.

The truth is that plenty of board games are intentionally designed to last a long time. Some use this to try and create epic experiences nothing can match, while others have designed a way to split a long game into several 2-hour sessions to make them more manageable.

Updated on March 16th, 2024, by kristy Ambrose: Tabletop gamers can look for a variety of experiences in what’s still a popular and thriving market, despite some opinions that tabletop games are outdated. Which game is the best fit all depends on the group of players; some want simple and quick games they can play while they socialize and have a laugh for an evening. Meanwhile, others prefer a much more hardcore experience that dedicates a whole day of their lives to learning, loving, and playing a game. These long games can create deeply immersive playing experiences that will stick with players forever, and there are plenty of them out there, so a couple more have been added to this list.

16 Risk

Playing Time: 2 – 4 Hours

• Designed by: Albert Lamorisse and Michael I. Levin
• Publisher: Parker Brothers
• Release year: 1959

One of the more notorious examples of games that not only take a long time but also require a fair amount of gear and space, a typical game of Risk can take as little as two hours. It’s a popular party game that up to six people can enjoy.

Since the map is known for taking up a healthy amount of space, it’s ideal for a “party table” that’s big enough to include diversions like snacks and drinks. People can also move freely around the gaming area and, depending on how many people there are, party organizers can also arrange their guests into teams or run tournaments to keep the activity going.

15 Through The Ages: A New Story Of Civilization

Playing Time: 4 Hours

• Designed by: Vlaada Chvátil
• Publisher: Czech Games Edition
• Release year: 2015

Many of the longest board games all carry a similar theme. Historical settings are commonplace in the board game world because they create inherently different and interesting scenarios. However, the longest pages almost exclusively follow this theme.

The historical period varies, although many seek to cover all of history in one package. This is where Through The Ages comes in. This is a card drafting game where players look to build a great civilization by managing food, science, production, and all the things any Civilization player will be familiar with.

14 The War Of The Ring

Playing Time: 4 hours

• Designed by: Roberto Di Meglio, Marco Maggi, and Francesco Nepitello
• Publisher: Ares Games
• Release year: 2004

The name isn’t just derivative, this is actually based on Tolkien’s epic series, but not on any specific stories or legends. Instead, two to four players control either the good or evil forces of Middle-earth in an attempt to either destroy or reclaim the One Ring during the same time period as the Peter Jackson movies.

Given the length and breadth of the lore of Middle-earth, it’s easy to see why The War of the Ring would take a long time to play. The game starts with a political track in which Gandalf must recruit certain reluctant allies into the forces of the Free People, who must then battle the Shadow Armies for dominance.

13 The Republic Of Rome

Playing Time: 5 Hours

• Designed by: Richard Berthold, Don Greenwood, and Robert Haines
• Publisher: The Avalon Hill Game Co.
• Release year: 1990

This is a game whose theme will make most people yawn until they pass out but will make a specific type of history nerd squeal with delight at the thought. The dirty little secret about The Republic of Rome is that, despite presenting itself in a rather boring way, it’s a pretty brilliant game.

Players navigate the fairly complex political system of the Roman Republic during one of the empire’s biggest periods. Players must manage resources to make proposals to the Senate, which others vote on.

The goal is to get the player’s faction in control of the Senate and become Rome’s first Emperor. Resist power grabs and assassination attempts from other players, invasions from foreign powers, and rebellions from the Roman people. It’s a complex mix that forces players to work together while each one is setting up the pieces to put themselves on top.

12 1830: Railways & Robber Barons

Playing Time: 6 Hours

• Designer: Bruce Shelley and Francis Tresham
• Publisher: The Avalon Hill Game Co.
• Release date: 1986

This game was originally released in 1986, with a new edition released in 2011, which looked to speed the game up somewhat. Regardless, it’s still a game that can stretch on for the better part of a day. On the surface, it looks like Monopoly meets Ticket To Ride, which is a bad thing meeting a good thing.

It shares some similarities with both games but makes some crucial alterations. For one thing, rather than playing with pure money exchanged between other players, the game’s economy centers around a stock market, which can be manipulated by players to great effect. It’s a complex system, which is why it takes so long, but for players who are all about the numbers, it could be a great time.

11 Nemesis

Playing Time: 6 Hours

• Designer: Adam Kwapiński
• Publisher: Awaken Realms
• Release date: 2018

A big one for any Aliens fans here, as Nemesis does a fantastic job of bringing about that great horror atmosphere. This is a semi-cooperative game where players have to navigate a ship while keeping clear of an alien that can hear players’ movements and gets stronger the longer the game goes on.

What’s more, each player has secret objectives that they need to fulfill to win the game. Some of these may be helpful to the group, like restoring power to the ship. Others won’t be so helpful, such as navigating the ship to an unknown planet or getting a specified player killed. It’s a tense mix of strategy and social deduction, full of memorable moments.

10 Civilization

Playing Time: 6 Hours

• Designer: Francis Tresham
• Publisher: Hartland Trefoil Ltd.
• Release date: 1980

There have been a whole host of Civilization board games that have come out over the years. Each has a different take on the game’s format, but the original 1980 version captures the game’s length the best.

Interestingly for a Civilization game, players don’t progress through all of history, just from around 8000BC to the dawn of the Roman Empire in the 3rd Century. Which, disturbingly, means that this game was cut short and still managed to be insanely long. It’s reasonably well-regarded as one of the better games for deep dives into ancient civilizations. However, though the mechanics are solid, it could be argued they don’t hold up for a 6-hour session.

9 Diplomacy

Playing Time: 6 Hours

• Designer: Allan B. Calhamer
• Publisher: The Avalon Hill Game Co.
• Release date: 1959

Diplomacy is a unique game that looks to fully engage each player in becoming a ruler of their power. Players take control of one of the great European powers at the turn of the 20th Century and have to negotiate with their fellow players to win allies and gain territory.

At each turn, players can discuss and negotiate what they will do with their military units. Players can make alliances to overpower and share territory, or players can say they’ll do that while stabbing each other in the back. Players all right down their orders in secret and reveal them simultaneously, which means people always have to gamble on who they can trust and if their plans will succeed.

8 Paths Of Glory

Playing Time: 8 Hours

• Designer: Ted Raicer
• Publisher: GMT Games
• Release date: 1999

For fans of wargames, Paths Of Glory is a recognizable name as one of the better games in the genre. It is, however, quite dense for a casual board gamer to get into. Taking place during the First World War, this two-player game sees one player control the allies and one control the central powers.

As one would expect from a game that covers the entirety of World War 1, there’s a lot to do. Managing troops all across Europe means that turns can take some time and the push-and-pull of the game flow can be a bit tiresome.

However, these deadlocks can sometimes make for tense situations, the likes of which are somewhat realistic to how combat was in the war. Board games of this style were so popular that they were the main inspiration for the video games that would eventually become the modern military shooter.

7 7 Ages

Playing Time: 8 Hours

• Designer: Harry Rowland
• Publisher: Australian Design Group
• Release date: 2004

Unlike that coward of a Civilization game, 7 Ages goes the whole hog and covers history from 4000 BC to the modern-day 2000 AD. Modern incarnations of the game have even earlier start times. While this may sound like a game very similar to Civilization, this focuses on gaining & trading cards with fellow players to reach their peak.

Leaders can only be chosen depending on the period the game is starting, and players will be in a constant string of negotiations and trading to help each other grow while still looking to become the most dominant. It is also possible for players to control multiple civilizations to help each other grow, but they will then be splitting their limited actions even thinner.

6 Twilight Imperium

Playing Time: 8 Hours

• Designer: Christian T. Petersen
• Publisher: Fantasy Flight Games
• Release date: 1997

Twilight Imperium is the poster-child for this style of long, complicated, and expensive games, but that’s arguably just because it’s the best. Players control one of 17 factions and must dominate the galaxy through a mixture of all-out war, political maneuvering, and economic domination.

Each faction has a wildly different playstyle, meaning every game feels different. While the systems and mechanics in play do require a short novel’s worth of rulebooks to understand, they make for some fantastically deep and rewarding strategies for players who are willing to get their heads around them.

5 Europe Engulfed: WW2 European Theatre Block Game

Playing Time: 12 Hours

• Designer: Jesse Evans and Rick Young
• Publisher: GMT Games
• Release date: 2003

If a game focused on WW1 was long, a game on WW2 is naturally going to be even longer. What’s interesting about Europe Engulfed is that despite taking half a rotation of the Earth to complete, each turn moves quite quickly. Players have to think deeply & strategically at a faster pace than games of this nature tend to move.

Naturally, it doesn’t keep up this pace for the entire runtime, but players may be surprised at the flow of things. The game strikes an interesting balance with how different powers can control the same areas but get different results.

For example, when a new territory is conquered by a foreign power, they get the resources that the territory produces, but they don’t get as much as the original power controlling it did. It makes players think a lot deeper than just using “bigger army diplomacy” to solve their problems, as many of the best wargames do.

4 Pandemic Legacy

Playing Time: 12 – 24 Hours

• Designer: Rob Daviau and Matt Leacock
• Publisher: Z-Man Games
• Release date: 2015

Whilst the Legacy game genre was invented by Risk Legacy, Pandemic Legacy is what put the style of the game on the map. Legacy games are designed to be played over multiple sessions, taking potentially months to get through, with exciting things along the way.

Pandemic Legacy, sees players play through 12-24 games of Pandemic, with the result of each game having a direct impact on future games. Cities can be lost forever, stickers are placed on the board, and the game even instructs players to rip up cards once they can no longer be used. This results in a game that can only be played once, but it will be a long road to get there with genius emergent storytelling.

3 Gloomhaven

Playing Time: 90 Hours

• Designer: Isaac Childres
• Publisher: Cephalofair Games
• Release date: 2017

Currently the top-rated game on Board Game Geek, Gloomhaven is another Legacy game that takes the genre to its extreme. Players will have to navigate a massive RPG campaign that could rival any of the major RPG video game franchises.

With 75 scenarios, all taking up to two hours, there’s an absurd amount of content in the box. It costs over $150, but it’s a game that players will be coming back to for a hell of a long time, and it can bring a group of tabletop gamers together.

2 World In Flames

Playing Time: 100 Hours

• Designer: Greg Pinder and Harry Rowland
• Publisher: Australian Design Group
• Release date: 1985

Taking the wargaming concept to the extreme, World in Flames is set in WW2 and has no end of ways in which players can wage war. Quite an old game, the game comes with five maps, portraying all the major fronts of the war, and it’s clear that the game was put together by experts on the war who cared deeply about detail.

What’s great about World in Flames is that how much of the game is played is relatively customizable. What maps players want to use, how many players are involved and their play style all drastically alter how long this game takes. It can be a 2-hour sprint, or the dedicated players can sink upwards of 100 hours into the game.

1 The Campaign For North Africa

Playing Time: 1500 Hours

• Designer: Richard H. Berg
• Publisher: SPI (Simulations Publications, Inc.)
• Release date: 1979

This feels like a bit of a cheat because this game was specifically designed to be ridiculously long, but the facts are the facts. The game’s map is so big, that players will almost certainly not own a table big enough for it, and even a living room might need rearranging to fit it on the floor.

Players are instructed that every military unit & every resource must be kept track of in excruciating detail to succeed. The Campaign for North Africa also recommends that players play in two teams of five, with each person on the team keeping track of a specific unit/resource. If played as intended, players will know the name of every pilot under their command and the serial number of every plane they own.

It almost feels like a tabletop RPG in scope but aimed specifically at people who really, REALLY like military stuff. It is ridiculous in its detail by design and should only be attempted to be played as a novelty or by the most hardcore of hardcore wargaming fans.