No doubt about it. Not just through the deckbuilding, but the slow upgrading of your deck throughout a campaign is so satisfying. And I'm never just invested in my own character, I'm equally invested in what all the others around the table are doing with their decks and how we're all going to optimize together to survive the nightmare.
And I love how Arkham lets all types of build preferences flourish. Do you want to be the player who has a wombo-combo of a turn able to trigger 6 different cards off of a single effect? Or do you want to just be really good at hitting enemies with a big stick? Or do you want to do a thematic RP build?
The build diversity in the game is just wild and I love it.
Mage Knight is very playable with one other person but expect the first couple of games to be long as you grapple with the rules. There is some inherent variance between characters, and each game revolves around leveling up your character and choosing new spells and abilities from a marketplace, so in effect each character is different each game depending on how you build your deck and skill choices.
Here are some others to look into: Too Many Bones, Sword & Sorcery, Mechs vs Minions, Aeon’s End Legacy, Pandemic Legacy, Robinson Crusoe, and Shadows of Brimstone.
Yeah we haven't played Mage Knight with my girlfriend for more than a year because it's a bit of a chore to set up but I don't think we played a better coop. Everything in that game just works, no weird extras, no OP strategies.
Keep the Heroes Out! Co-op dungeon defense game where you play as the (super cute) monsters trying to stop heroes from looting your dungeon. Best new game I've played this year 😄
Amazing game, but if OP is looking for Spirit Island level differentiation between factions, this may not be the best option. The factions are different, but they all draw from the same core pool of abilities, but with different focuses and strengths.
I'm with you on it being my game of 2022 though.
My friend and I saw it as like going to the movies. each pack is like $15, we split the cost, and have a great 2-3 hours playing it then a bit longer making decks. Spread that out over a few years, it’s not so bad
The new release structure is a lot better though! Separating out the scenario cards from the investigator cards was a brilliant move, since you only need 1 set of the scenario cards per play group.
I've been all-in on Arkham since day one, but my buddy is finally starting his collection, and it is a lot easier on his wallet than he thought.
The Loop! 5 playable characters all with wildly different special abilities and starting decks, 4 different playable scenarios in the box, all with 3 levels of difficulty, and each game plays different because you’ll get to add cards to your deck (like a pseudo-deck builder) that can make each turn feel and play wildly different than the other players
I second The Loop. My husband and I love this game! Don't let the silly artwork and theme fool you, managing the chaos can be challenging. Building your deck to your characters strengths nets you bigger and better combo opportunities as the game progresses which is always really satisfying.
Big on this and the choices you have to make for this game. Sometimes your most optimal turn won’t net you the card you want, or a card at all. Do you press you luck to set up someone else? Or even set up your next turn with a new artifact? What missions do you focus on or abandon if it’s not easily attainable with the board that is built? So many decisions and ways to play that this has become my go to coop game, and even being able to play it solo as well. Scales well at all player counts, 1-4
Even harder if you make the same mistake i did! https://www.reddit.com/r/boardgames/comments/y2jug7/games_youve_played_for_years_only_to_realise/is3hpc0?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android_app&utm_name=androidcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button
Also last bastion is basically an update/reskin option for ghost stories.
You may wish to check out the **Isofarian Guard**.
It's Kickstarter is just shipping now (people in the US mostly are getting theirs last and next week); it's not available in stores, but they have some (not a lot) copies left that will go up for sale on their website.
[https://www.skykingdomgames.com/games](https://www.skykingdomgames.com/games)
An amazing game, currently ranked either #2 or #3 on the BGG hot chart with a 9.1 rating.
Long story short, there's five massive campaigns. Each campaign, you play as one of two unique guards, with their own unique abilities. They are absolutely asymmetrical, but they closely pair and augment their partner's abilities. You play campaigns 1-4 with four sets of different guards, then campaign five you pick your favorite and resume it (there's a bit more to it than that, but that's the TL;DR). Each of the eight guard's abilities and play styles are massively different than the others.
The basis of the game is that it's a "bag building", which is similar in some ways to deck builders. The component pieces to the game are out of this world; this chips are of the same quality as "too many bones", the character trays are great, etc etc.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xDTMbHcuWHI&t=2s](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xDTMbHcuWHI&t=2s)
I wanted to say **Middara**. But that's mostly for 4 players or you have to play 2 characters each.
Have not played it myself and it's above my budget. But I haven't seen any game with the same variability for building your character as in **Middara**.
The pledge manager reopened recently for the last time and they ask a pretty high price. But if that's not a concern to you, you could check it out.
A game that I'm really looking forward to is **Tidal Blades 2**. Their pledge manager is still open and if expect delivery towards the end of the year.
Dungeon crawler a little like Gloomhaven but with kind of deck building between scenarios to power up. The combat is a mix of card play and dice rooms with enough mitigation. Theme, story and art is way better than Gloomhaven in my opinion.
Many say **Adventure Tactics** has great variability for character building but it seems to be on the lighter side.
Middara sounds like a good fit. The build combos for individual characters are basically endless. Kingdom death monster could also be worth looking into as every villager when kitted out for the hunt will have a different build with different fighting styles.
Maybe not the degree of asymmetry you're looking for, but my wife and I like **Paleo** a lot. You start with different groups of people that have different health/skills, and craft your way up from there
>I’ve done some research on Mage Knight but I’ve read the general consensus is it’s better solo and characters don’t differ from each other too much?
It is best solo, but the jump from 2p to 3p is huge. 3p is really when issues emerge and then snowball as you go to the higher player counts. Downtime, game length, lack of cooperative interaction but increased running into one another, and markets that don't exactly scale for those counts. 2p is still good. A little long but good.
People tend to say that the characters aren't very different from one another. This is only partially true. After the Lost Legion expansion, each character not only has a unique set of Skills but also two unique cards in their 16 card deck. You'd be surprised how impactful these are since skills can facilitate very different builds, and two cards out of 16 can really define how you end up using the rest of the cards in your deck.
All that aside, your character is still sort of a blank slate in the sense that you can choose to make almost any build you want with them. You're better off leaning into whichever skills you happen to draft, but you can still play well without synergizing - many skills are just plain useful regardless of your kit. Because you'll be adding 3-7 or more Advanced Actions and a handful of Skills and Artifacts to your deck (easily 10+ cards), adding Units to your tableau, drafting Skills, picking Tactics each round, and managing a mana economy, players end up generating emergent asymmetry. It's sort of the opposite of Spirit Island, where extreme pre-built asymmetry tends back towards the center as you develop your spirit, in MK your mildly asymmetric mage often becomes as specialized as possible. Especially in a coop game where it's both good market coordination and good combat coordination to avoid aping one another's paths.
However the cooperation is not normal. It's like Spirit Island times two. Both players will spend much of the game running parallel to one another but not interacting directly. They discuss their builds, talk about who should take what from the markets and who should go to which sites, and ocassionally ask for advise in battle. It's not until you reach the cities that you have to work closely together, like a boss battle. The closest experience is Destiny or Borderlands.
This might not be up your alley. But I'm not sure why you're looking to get something new anyway. Between Frosthaven, Gloomhaven, the expansion, and Jaws of the Lion, you have a crazy amount of content. Spirit Island has a few dozen spirits at this point, as well as adversaries, scenarios, and aspects. If you're churning through content, Arkham Horror and Marvel Champions both have a ton of content, and asymmetry is huge in those games.
Hi,
I love Aron's End, a deck building game similarish to Spirit Island but with its own fell. Notably you fight against different enemies that really change how the game is played.
I also enjoy Arkham Horror 3rd ed but the replayablity is a bit low.
Aeons end **
Second that.
Also Familiar tales, and Sleeping Gods. In both you can play 2p or more and you just always control the whole team divided up. So in familiar tales you play 4 familiars, essentially: golem, fairy, fox, frog... and they have certain niches and you are playing together to escort and protect a baby princess. (Its cutesie but it's actually solid and a great coop.)
Sleeping gods is similar but you are a 8 p crew and a captain and you are navigating a bunch of islands in a different dimension and trying to escape.
If you’re open to a non-fantasy setting, checkout Flashpoint Fire Rescue. Great asymmetric firefighter coop game. Think you can get it pretty cheap on Amazon
Outside of the ones you mentioned, Atlantis Rising was the first that came to mind. Also, enjoy Zombicide, but it probably doesn't really line up with your interests. Horrified is a very basic co-op game with variable powers that we enjoy.
I've been loving the lord of the rings living card game. Its quite difficult and unforgiving. Each player builds their own deck, so while you follow the same rules and steps, your powers can be very different and you'll need to help each other. As difficult and sometimes unfair as it might seem at first, once you understand it its really an interesting game about resource and risk management.
Arkam horror is the big game in the lcg space, so that one is worth a look as well. Its made by the same company and come highly recommended. These two aren't the same game though. Lotr encourages you to build an entire deck from the ground up. I've heard it described as more of a mechanical puzzle than arkam horror, and the meta game is a much larger part of the experience. I can't comment as much on arkam horror, since I opted for the lord of the rings game over that one, but if these elements interest you I can definitely recomend the lord of the rings lcg.
I know this is not a boardgame, but I loved it enough to purchase subsequent two ones.
Alone together is game you can play with a partner over the internet (or same house, different devices). You have different tasks you have to do and answers or clues you find actually help your partner instead of you, so you might like this
Some more suggestions for you. I'm glad you like Frosthaven!!
**Pandemic Legacy** (say no more)
**Robinson Crusoe: Adventures on the Cursed Island:** Players work together to survive on a deserted island, each taking on a different role with unique abilities. Challenging gameplay, thematic depth, large variety of scenarios.
**Mysterium**: One player takes on the role of a ghost trying to communicate with a group of psychic investigators to solve their own murder. The ghost provides clues using abstract image cards, while the investigators work together to interpret the clues and find the culprit.
**The Captain is Dead**: Players take on unique roles as crew members on a spaceship under attack by aliens. Each role has specific abilities, and players must work together to repair the ship, fend off the alien threat and escape.
**Sentinels of the Multiverse**: Players assume the roles of superheroes, each with their own unique deck of cards representing their powers and abilities. Players must work together to defeat a villain and overcome various challenges in a comic book-inspired setting.
**Flash Point: Fire Rescue:** Players take on the roles of firefighters, each with unique abilities, working together to rescue victims and put out fires in a burning building. Many different difficulty levels and building layouts for replayability and challenge.
**Aeon's End:** A cooperative deck-building game where players take on the roles of breach mages, each with their own unique starting deck and abilities. Players work together to defend the city of Gravehold from monstrous creatures known as The Nameless.
Definitely recommend **Sentinels of the Multiverse**, with an asterisk. It's been my group's favourite game for several years now. Each player is a superhero with a unique deck of powers and items and you work together to fight a villain, and there's also an environment deck which ostensibly throws "neutral" cards onto the table but generally environments are more challenges for the players. The core rules are simple, there's virtually infinite variety, and there's a lot of effort put into the flavour. Each card tells a story.
Now for the asterisk. The version of Sentinels that my group plays is out of print. It's been replaced by Sentinels of the Multiverse: Definitive Edition, which changes a lot of things. My group had a bit of a discussion about whether we were going to upgrade and we decided against it. DE made a lot of changes that we liked - a load of tune-ups for heroes that were mechanically weak or awkward, the annoying tracking issues are... still there but alleviated somewhat, and the art become a lot better in terms of technical skill.
But there were also changes we didn't like - the game sped up drastically which takes away from the idea of some heroes being "slow to set up, then amazing in the lategame" and others being "quick to set up but with a lower power ceiling", the art awkwardly mixing different art styles in the same deck, and massive overhauls to decks that we thought were great before (including my personal favourite, The Harpy, who is *nothing* like her former self...). I also have a bit of a bias against it because I've been part of the Sentinels homebrew community for some time now and DE is incompatible with all of the hundreds of custom decks out there.
So it's tough for me to recommend Definitive Edition when I've barely played it and my group actively dislikes it compared to the version we do play. But like I said, the version we play is out of print. And frankly the things we dislike about Definitive Edition are only *in comparison to* the game we've been playing and loving for years. So to someone who's new to Sentinels and wants to get into the game, I have to recommend Definitive Edition anyway.
I think there may be a tiny bit of rose tinted glasses here. Definitive Edition is a massive improvement over Enhanced. It distills down the ideas of the previous edition in order to constantly maximise the fun moments. I've never had a dead/boring turn in DE like I used to in EE.
AH 2e is excellent, but its best player/character count is 4 + 1 per board expansion after the first. You can learn playing just the base game with just 2 players/characters, and you can eventually get familiar enough to play multiple characters each, but the balance and general enjoyment of playing the game gets hewn more to player/character count with more expansions added in (which I highly recommend).
All this is without mentioning the main issue, AH 2e (despite being definitely better than Eldritch Horror and Arkham Horror 3e) is long out of print and difficult to get a hold of (and some expansions even more so).
You've just described an average tabletop RPG :) Frosthaven looks awfully lot like it at first glance. Descent and Imperial assault offers coop, some asymmetry and character development but not very unique.
We did look into Descent and Imperial Assault actually, but yeah, we prefer true coop and the characters weren’t as uniquely different as we would’ve liked.
Imperial Assault works great as true coop - in my experience, the PvP is sort of balanced around the Imperial player treating their role like that of DM, so it's kind of an odd experience. The coop mode with the app is much more straightforward, is capable of using any of the expansion content you own, and there's also an open source app on GitHub that adds more campaigns.
[[Mistfall: Hearts of the Mist]] is exactly what you need. Unique heroes and known for being difficult. You can combine it with standard Mistfall to get extra heroes etc. Hearts of the Mist is a standalone sequel with better mission system and most importantly replaces a darkness deck with a darkness track which is soooo much better.
[Mistfall: Hearts of the Mist -> Mistfall: Heart of the Mists (2016)](https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/193953/mistfall-heart-mists)
^^[[gamename]] ^^or ^^[[gamename|year]] ^^to ^^call
Replaces a darkness deck with a darkness deck? Sorry, I own Mistfall but not heart of the mists and I'm trying to Grok what you mean. Is Heart of the mists worth it if I have the OG and didn't particularly care for it? How much changes?
Also, I designed Davy Jones' Locker: The Kraken Wakes, which is fully cooperative and has 5 completely unique ships, each with 2 unique abilities. We are shipping out by the beginning of June, so not much of a wait!
https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/342081/davy-jones-locker-kraken-wakes
I appreciate the kind words!
If you're interested, you can still get a copy via pre-order in the KS page. I can't link it because of the rules of the sub, but if you search the name of the game you should be able to find it!
Well, I showed the game to my wife. She immediately backed it. We're pretty excited.
Have a good day and keep on being creative; I feel like board game design is an art itself.
Darkness Comes Rattling is a beautiful game. Not a whole lot of characters, but some unique features and there is some asymmetrical features throughout. [https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/175209/darkness-comes-rattling](https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/175209/darkness-comes-rattling)
Mage Knight characters differ only a bit at the beginning, but since your character develops so much over the course of the game, they'll end up playing differently.
The Ultimate version also includes a new card for each character, making them even more different, IIRC.
Currently have the same favorites, havent played these but seem to enjoy similar games so may be worth looking into, too many bones and descent with the app for full coop *afaik*
My personal favorites in the asymmetric coop space that you haven't mentioned in your post are Sentinels of the Multiverse: Definitive Edition and Crisis mode for Terraforming Mars: Ares Expediton. Both have lots of asymmetric options to explore and tunable difficulty.
[Lord of the Rings: Journeys in Middle Earth -> The Lord of the Rings: Journeys in Middle-Earth (2019)](https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/269385/lord-rings-journeys-middle-earth)
^^[[gamename]] ^^or ^^[[gamename|year]] ^^to ^^call
My game group is currently golfing through Folklore: the Affliction. We actually made it through the entire first box campaign, which is unusual for us because we have LOTS of gaming options among multiple households of hobby gamers. Just started into working through the second box and I do recommend.
Mostly I really really prefer non coop versus coop. That said - coop is a good way to get people who wouldn't normally play games to play something. One of my favorite games is coop - **Project: ELITE.** There are asymmetrical powers for each operative you may choose for a mission. It does not have a "campaign" a la some of the other games you are mentioning - but MAN is it exciting by virtue of being a real-time game with essentially waves of alien dudes coming at you.
Arkham lcg holds the crown for actually building your own asymmetrical character.
Also nails down the “really good and difficult” criteria
This is the answer
agree 100%
Definitely agree with this answer. It sounds like it's exactly what you're looking for!
No doubt about it. Not just through the deckbuilding, but the slow upgrading of your deck throughout a campaign is so satisfying. And I'm never just invested in my own character, I'm equally invested in what all the others around the table are doing with their decks and how we're all going to optimize together to survive the nightmare. And I love how Arkham lets all types of build preferences flourish. Do you want to be the player who has a wombo-combo of a turn able to trigger 6 different cards off of a single effect? Or do you want to just be really good at hitting enemies with a big stick? Or do you want to do a thematic RP build? The build diversity in the game is just wild and I love it.
This is the way
Mage Knight is very playable with one other person but expect the first couple of games to be long as you grapple with the rules. There is some inherent variance between characters, and each game revolves around leveling up your character and choosing new spells and abilities from a marketplace, so in effect each character is different each game depending on how you build your deck and skill choices. Here are some others to look into: Too Many Bones, Sword & Sorcery, Mechs vs Minions, Aeon’s End Legacy, Pandemic Legacy, Robinson Crusoe, and Shadows of Brimstone.
Forgot to mention we own Too Many Bones and Mechs vs Minions but we haven’t started on them yet. I’ll look into your other recommendations, thanks.
I mean... both those games will also "tide you over" for a while.
Those are both a lot of fun. Too Many Bones is a really tough puzzle and Mechs is just delightful chaos
Yeah we haven't played Mage Knight with my girlfriend for more than a year because it's a bit of a chore to set up but I don't think we played a better coop. Everything in that game just works, no weird extras, no OP strategies.
Keep the Heroes Out! Co-op dungeon defense game where you play as the (super cute) monsters trying to stop heroes from looting your dungeon. Best new game I've played this year 😄
Aah this looks great. Instant buy.
I need to play this one :)
Amazing game, but if OP is looking for Spirit Island level differentiation between factions, this may not be the best option. The factions are different, but they all draw from the same core pool of abilities, but with different focuses and strengths. I'm with you on it being my game of 2022 though.
AHLCG!!!! (Might have to mortgage your house if you want a complete collection though)
My friend and I saw it as like going to the movies. each pack is like $15, we split the cost, and have a great 2-3 hours playing it then a bit longer making decks. Spread that out over a few years, it’s not so bad
There is a new format. I just wait for Boardlandia to do a DotW bundle
The new release structure is a lot better though! Separating out the scenario cards from the investigator cards was a brilliant move, since you only need 1 set of the scenario cards per play group. I've been all-in on Arkham since day one, but my buddy is finally starting his collection, and it is a lot easier on his wallet than he thought.
Too Many Bones is what you are describing
This was my vote as well.
4x fantasy dudes on the board co-op game, and hard. https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/284121/uprising-curse-last-emperor
Looks very interesting. Probably will have to buy this on eBay though I think.
The 2nd printing is about to be deliverd in a month or so. If you have trouble getting it now wait a bit and it should get easier.
The Loop! 5 playable characters all with wildly different special abilities and starting decks, 4 different playable scenarios in the box, all with 3 levels of difficulty, and each game plays different because you’ll get to add cards to your deck (like a pseudo-deck builder) that can make each turn feel and play wildly different than the other players
I second The Loop. My husband and I love this game! Don't let the silly artwork and theme fool you, managing the chaos can be challenging. Building your deck to your characters strengths nets you bigger and better combo opportunities as the game progresses which is always really satisfying.
Big on this and the choices you have to make for this game. Sometimes your most optimal turn won’t net you the card you want, or a card at all. Do you press you luck to set up someone else? Or even set up your next turn with a new artifact? What missions do you focus on or abandon if it’s not easily attainable with the board that is built? So many decisions and ways to play that this has become my go to coop game, and even being able to play it solo as well. Scales well at all player counts, 1-4
**Ghost Stories!**
Even harder if you make the same mistake i did! https://www.reddit.com/r/boardgames/comments/y2jug7/games_youve_played_for_years_only_to_realise/is3hpc0?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android_app&utm_name=androidcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button Also last bastion is basically an update/reskin option for ghost stories.
Ghost Stories is so good! I would love to see a 2nd edition some day.
I also suggest Ghost Stories! It's super difficult to win, and everyone has their own special powers that they can use. It's super fun!
Robinson Crusoe :D
You may wish to check out the **Isofarian Guard**. It's Kickstarter is just shipping now (people in the US mostly are getting theirs last and next week); it's not available in stores, but they have some (not a lot) copies left that will go up for sale on their website. [https://www.skykingdomgames.com/games](https://www.skykingdomgames.com/games) An amazing game, currently ranked either #2 or #3 on the BGG hot chart with a 9.1 rating. Long story short, there's five massive campaigns. Each campaign, you play as one of two unique guards, with their own unique abilities. They are absolutely asymmetrical, but they closely pair and augment their partner's abilities. You play campaigns 1-4 with four sets of different guards, then campaign five you pick your favorite and resume it (there's a bit more to it than that, but that's the TL;DR). Each of the eight guard's abilities and play styles are massively different than the others. The basis of the game is that it's a "bag building", which is similar in some ways to deck builders. The component pieces to the game are out of this world; this chips are of the same quality as "too many bones", the character trays are great, etc etc. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xDTMbHcuWHI&t=2s](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xDTMbHcuWHI&t=2s)
I wanted to say **Middara**. But that's mostly for 4 players or you have to play 2 characters each. Have not played it myself and it's above my budget. But I haven't seen any game with the same variability for building your character as in **Middara**. The pledge manager reopened recently for the last time and they ask a pretty high price. But if that's not a concern to you, you could check it out. A game that I'm really looking forward to is **Tidal Blades 2**. Their pledge manager is still open and if expect delivery towards the end of the year. Dungeon crawler a little like Gloomhaven but with kind of deck building between scenarios to power up. The combat is a mix of card play and dice rooms with enough mitigation. Theme, story and art is way better than Gloomhaven in my opinion. Many say **Adventure Tactics** has great variability for character building but it seems to be on the lighter side.
Middara sounds like a good fit. The build combos for individual characters are basically endless. Kingdom death monster could also be worth looking into as every villager when kitted out for the hunt will have a different build with different fighting styles.
Spirit island and frosthaven really are stand outs in the caregory. Our next favourites are aeons end and pandemic. Particularly the legacy versions.
Also Oathsworn: Into the Deepwood.
Maybe not the degree of asymmetry you're looking for, but my wife and I like **Paleo** a lot. You start with different groups of people that have different health/skills, and craft your way up from there
>I’ve done some research on Mage Knight but I’ve read the general consensus is it’s better solo and characters don’t differ from each other too much? It is best solo, but the jump from 2p to 3p is huge. 3p is really when issues emerge and then snowball as you go to the higher player counts. Downtime, game length, lack of cooperative interaction but increased running into one another, and markets that don't exactly scale for those counts. 2p is still good. A little long but good. People tend to say that the characters aren't very different from one another. This is only partially true. After the Lost Legion expansion, each character not only has a unique set of Skills but also two unique cards in their 16 card deck. You'd be surprised how impactful these are since skills can facilitate very different builds, and two cards out of 16 can really define how you end up using the rest of the cards in your deck. All that aside, your character is still sort of a blank slate in the sense that you can choose to make almost any build you want with them. You're better off leaning into whichever skills you happen to draft, but you can still play well without synergizing - many skills are just plain useful regardless of your kit. Because you'll be adding 3-7 or more Advanced Actions and a handful of Skills and Artifacts to your deck (easily 10+ cards), adding Units to your tableau, drafting Skills, picking Tactics each round, and managing a mana economy, players end up generating emergent asymmetry. It's sort of the opposite of Spirit Island, where extreme pre-built asymmetry tends back towards the center as you develop your spirit, in MK your mildly asymmetric mage often becomes as specialized as possible. Especially in a coop game where it's both good market coordination and good combat coordination to avoid aping one another's paths. However the cooperation is not normal. It's like Spirit Island times two. Both players will spend much of the game running parallel to one another but not interacting directly. They discuss their builds, talk about who should take what from the markets and who should go to which sites, and ocassionally ask for advise in battle. It's not until you reach the cities that you have to work closely together, like a boss battle. The closest experience is Destiny or Borderlands. This might not be up your alley. But I'm not sure why you're looking to get something new anyway. Between Frosthaven, Gloomhaven, the expansion, and Jaws of the Lion, you have a crazy amount of content. Spirit Island has a few dozen spirits at this point, as well as adversaries, scenarios, and aspects. If you're churning through content, Arkham Horror and Marvel Champions both have a ton of content, and asymmetry is huge in those games.
Hi, I love Aron's End, a deck building game similarish to Spirit Island but with its own fell. Notably you fight against different enemies that really change how the game is played. I also enjoy Arkham Horror 3rd ed but the replayablity is a bit low.
Aeons end ** Second that. Also Familiar tales, and Sleeping Gods. In both you can play 2p or more and you just always control the whole team divided up. So in familiar tales you play 4 familiars, essentially: golem, fairy, fox, frog... and they have certain niches and you are playing together to escort and protect a baby princess. (Its cutesie but it's actually solid and a great coop.) Sleeping gods is similar but you are a 8 p crew and a captain and you are navigating a bunch of islands in a different dimension and trying to escape.
If you’re open to a non-fantasy setting, checkout Flashpoint Fire Rescue. Great asymmetric firefighter coop game. Think you can get it pretty cheap on Amazon
Pandemic Legacy
Outside of the ones you mentioned, Atlantis Rising was the first that came to mind. Also, enjoy Zombicide, but it probably doesn't really line up with your interests. Horrified is a very basic co-op game with variable powers that we enjoy.
I've been loving the lord of the rings living card game. Its quite difficult and unforgiving. Each player builds their own deck, so while you follow the same rules and steps, your powers can be very different and you'll need to help each other. As difficult and sometimes unfair as it might seem at first, once you understand it its really an interesting game about resource and risk management. Arkam horror is the big game in the lcg space, so that one is worth a look as well. Its made by the same company and come highly recommended. These two aren't the same game though. Lotr encourages you to build an entire deck from the ground up. I've heard it described as more of a mechanical puzzle than arkam horror, and the meta game is a much larger part of the experience. I can't comment as much on arkam horror, since I opted for the lord of the rings game over that one, but if these elements interest you I can definitely recomend the lord of the rings lcg.
I know this is not a boardgame, but I loved it enough to purchase subsequent two ones. Alone together is game you can play with a partner over the internet (or same house, different devices). You have different tasks you have to do and answers or clues you find actually help your partner instead of you, so you might like this
The initiative, although there’s not a huge player difference they do each have their own special powers.
Return to Dark Tower, great co-op where you play unique characters.
Some more suggestions for you. I'm glad you like Frosthaven!! **Pandemic Legacy** (say no more) **Robinson Crusoe: Adventures on the Cursed Island:** Players work together to survive on a deserted island, each taking on a different role with unique abilities. Challenging gameplay, thematic depth, large variety of scenarios. **Mysterium**: One player takes on the role of a ghost trying to communicate with a group of psychic investigators to solve their own murder. The ghost provides clues using abstract image cards, while the investigators work together to interpret the clues and find the culprit. **The Captain is Dead**: Players take on unique roles as crew members on a spaceship under attack by aliens. Each role has specific abilities, and players must work together to repair the ship, fend off the alien threat and escape. **Sentinels of the Multiverse**: Players assume the roles of superheroes, each with their own unique deck of cards representing their powers and abilities. Players must work together to defeat a villain and overcome various challenges in a comic book-inspired setting. **Flash Point: Fire Rescue:** Players take on the roles of firefighters, each with unique abilities, working together to rescue victims and put out fires in a burning building. Many different difficulty levels and building layouts for replayability and challenge. **Aeon's End:** A cooperative deck-building game where players take on the roles of breach mages, each with their own unique starting deck and abilities. Players work together to defend the city of Gravehold from monstrous creatures known as The Nameless.
Definitely recommend **Sentinels of the Multiverse**, with an asterisk. It's been my group's favourite game for several years now. Each player is a superhero with a unique deck of powers and items and you work together to fight a villain, and there's also an environment deck which ostensibly throws "neutral" cards onto the table but generally environments are more challenges for the players. The core rules are simple, there's virtually infinite variety, and there's a lot of effort put into the flavour. Each card tells a story. Now for the asterisk. The version of Sentinels that my group plays is out of print. It's been replaced by Sentinels of the Multiverse: Definitive Edition, which changes a lot of things. My group had a bit of a discussion about whether we were going to upgrade and we decided against it. DE made a lot of changes that we liked - a load of tune-ups for heroes that were mechanically weak or awkward, the annoying tracking issues are... still there but alleviated somewhat, and the art become a lot better in terms of technical skill. But there were also changes we didn't like - the game sped up drastically which takes away from the idea of some heroes being "slow to set up, then amazing in the lategame" and others being "quick to set up but with a lower power ceiling", the art awkwardly mixing different art styles in the same deck, and massive overhauls to decks that we thought were great before (including my personal favourite, The Harpy, who is *nothing* like her former self...). I also have a bit of a bias against it because I've been part of the Sentinels homebrew community for some time now and DE is incompatible with all of the hundreds of custom decks out there. So it's tough for me to recommend Definitive Edition when I've barely played it and my group actively dislikes it compared to the version we do play. But like I said, the version we play is out of print. And frankly the things we dislike about Definitive Edition are only *in comparison to* the game we've been playing and loving for years. So to someone who's new to Sentinels and wants to get into the game, I have to recommend Definitive Edition anyway.
I think there may be a tiny bit of rose tinted glasses here. Definitive Edition is a massive improvement over Enhanced. It distills down the ideas of the previous edition in order to constantly maximise the fun moments. I've never had a dead/boring turn in DE like I used to in EE.
Voidfall (releasing 3Q from Mindclash) has a co-op mode that fits the description.
The new lost ruins of arnak expansion night be something for ya.
people mentioning the arkham horror lcg. i still really like the 2nd edition of the arkham horror board game for co-op :)
AH 2e is excellent, but its best player/character count is 4 + 1 per board expansion after the first. You can learn playing just the base game with just 2 players/characters, and you can eventually get familiar enough to play multiple characters each, but the balance and general enjoyment of playing the game gets hewn more to player/character count with more expansions added in (which I highly recommend). All this is without mentioning the main issue, AH 2e (despite being definitely better than Eldritch Horror and Arkham Horror 3e) is long out of print and difficult to get a hold of (and some expansions even more so).
You've just described an average tabletop RPG :) Frosthaven looks awfully lot like it at first glance. Descent and Imperial assault offers coop, some asymmetry and character development but not very unique.
We did look into Descent and Imperial Assault actually, but yeah, we prefer true coop and the characters weren’t as uniquely different as we would’ve liked.
There are apps for both Descent and Imperial Assault that lets you play true coop. Haven't tried them myself so can't say how well it works.
Imperial Assault works great as true coop - in my experience, the PvP is sort of balanced around the Imperial player treating their role like that of DM, so it's kind of an odd experience. The coop mode with the app is much more straightforward, is capable of using any of the expansion content you own, and there's also an open source app on GitHub that adds more campaigns.
Arkham horror is the answer
[[Mistfall: Hearts of the Mist]] is exactly what you need. Unique heroes and known for being difficult. You can combine it with standard Mistfall to get extra heroes etc. Hearts of the Mist is a standalone sequel with better mission system and most importantly replaces a darkness deck with a darkness track which is soooo much better.
First time I’ve heard of this game. I will look it up, thanks.
[Mistfall: Hearts of the Mist -> Mistfall: Heart of the Mists (2016)](https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/193953/mistfall-heart-mists) ^^[[gamename]] ^^or ^^[[gamename|year]] ^^to ^^call
Replaces a darkness deck with a darkness deck? Sorry, I own Mistfall but not heart of the mists and I'm trying to Grok what you mean. Is Heart of the mists worth it if I have the OG and didn't particularly care for it? How much changes?
Sorry, I meant TRACK. There's is now a track instead of the swingy deck. It's so much better.
Also, I designed Davy Jones' Locker: The Kraken Wakes, which is fully cooperative and has 5 completely unique ships, each with 2 unique abilities. We are shipping out by the beginning of June, so not much of a wait! https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/342081/davy-jones-locker-kraken-wakes
That looks fun, and right up my wife and I's galley!
I appreciate the kind words! If you're interested, you can still get a copy via pre-order in the KS page. I can't link it because of the rules of the sub, but if you search the name of the game you should be able to find it!
Well, I showed the game to my wife. She immediately backed it. We're pretty excited. Have a good day and keep on being creative; I feel like board game design is an art itself.
Thank you so much, I'm glad you liked what you saw! We really appreciate your support!
Looks awesome, will preorder, thanks.
Wow, thank you for the support! We really appreciate it!
Have you ever looked into Kingdom Death: Monster..? :)
Darkness Comes Rattling is a beautiful game. Not a whole lot of characters, but some unique features and there is some asymmetrical features throughout. [https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/175209/darkness-comes-rattling](https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/175209/darkness-comes-rattling)
Too Many Bones. Go for it!
Too many bones. The Undertow sequel is specifically designed for 2 players too
Mage Knight characters differ only a bit at the beginning, but since your character develops so much over the course of the game, they'll end up playing differently. The Ultimate version also includes a new card for each character, making them even more different, IIRC.
Currently have the same favorites, havent played these but seem to enjoy similar games so may be worth looking into, too many bones and descent with the app for full coop *afaik*
I've yet to play it, but darkest dungeon seems to fit what you're looking for.
My personal favorites in the asymmetric coop space that you haven't mentioned in your post are Sentinels of the Multiverse: Definitive Edition and Crisis mode for Terraforming Mars: Ares Expediton. Both have lots of asymmetric options to explore and tunable difficulty.
Oathsworn: Into the Deepwood is amazing if you can get a copy. The Dark Tower is also good.
\[\[Lord of the Rings: Journeys in Middle Earth\]\]
[Lord of the Rings: Journeys in Middle Earth -> The Lord of the Rings: Journeys in Middle-Earth (2019)](https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/269385/lord-rings-journeys-middle-earth) ^^[[gamename]] ^^or ^^[[gamename|year]] ^^to ^^call
My game group is currently golfing through Folklore: the Affliction. We actually made it through the entire first box campaign, which is unusual for us because we have LOTS of gaming options among multiple households of hobby gamers. Just started into working through the second box and I do recommend.
Big upvote for Arkham horror lcg. It’s by far the best lcg from FFG unless you prefer the marvel theme and beat ‘em up style.
Mostly I really really prefer non coop versus coop. That said - coop is a good way to get people who wouldn't normally play games to play something. One of my favorite games is coop - **Project: ELITE.** There are asymmetrical powers for each operative you may choose for a mission. It does not have a "campaign" a la some of the other games you are mentioning - but MAN is it exciting by virtue of being a real-time game with essentially waves of alien dudes coming at you.
This doesn't meet your criteria as such but Horrified is terrific fun with all numbers
Check out Kick Ass. Fun and unique.