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When it comes to board games, there are plenty of exciting ones centred around wildlife. These games feature lush green landscapes, vibrant animals, and fascinating facts about protecting nature. You'll encounter challenges that let you explore and learn about wildlife in a way that reflects real-life ecosystems.
There’s nothing better than bringing the wonders of nature right to your table, where you can discover amazing creatures and wild places from the comfort of home. With so many animals and habitats to explore, there’s a game for every animal lover - whether you like birds, exploring the countryside, protecting animals, or learning how it all began.
Meadow by Imogen Usher
The perfect game for wildlife lovers for the exquisite artwork alone, there are over 20 unique cards featuring beautiful flora and fauna. However, the gameplay is also fantastic making it my favourite nature-themed game, and there are some brilliant ones to choose from.
Players explore a meadow by drafting and playing cards. Each card played will provide terrain and/or a food source, the terrain and food available determines which cards you can play. This will change over the course of the game as you add new plant and animal life. It’s very fun to puzzle out how to draft and play all the combinations you’ll need to build to play certain cards. As well as gaining points from cards, there is also a campfire board which offers players the opportunity to take special actions and score bonuses based on the different symbols in their meadow.
This has a great rulebook with some helpful summary pages, a lovely additional touch is the guide to all the cards identifying the species, the Latin name, and a short description. There is an excellent expansion; Downstream which adds some great elements to the game that slot in perfectly and feel intuitive to play. There’s another expansion; Adventure Book, being released this year which will add a campaign element which I’m very excited about.
Whilst the theme, gorgeous art and sleek design make this a very welcoming game, I wouldn’t necessarily suggest it for those brand new to the hobby. This is a really satisfying medium weight game, with lots of interesting choices to make. I find it particularly difficult as there are cards I will always draft (the hedgehog!) regardless of whether it works well in the particular game I’m playing. I don’t care, I love it.
Forest Shuffle by Sophie Jones
Forest Shuffle may not be the most educational wildlife game, but it's packed with woodland creatures and perfect for nature enthusiasts. In this game, players collect and place cards in their tableau, returning other cards to the forest for others to pick up. While the rules are simple, the strategy involved keeps you thinking as you aim for the best combinations to rack up points.
The real challenge comes when you realise how powerful certain cards can be—like the pesky hares, which can stack up quickly. Each time you add a card to your area, you must return another from your hand to the clearing. Make the wrong choice, and before you know it, your opponent could have 10 stacked hares and a collection of butterflies! This push and pull keeps the game exciting, as you’re always torn between playing and holding onto your valuable cards.
What truly sets Forest Shuffle apart is its stunning artwork. Every card is beautifully illustrated, from toads nestled at the base of trees to birds soaring through the canopy. As you play, your tableau will fill with trees, squirrels, mushrooms, deer, wolves, bears, and of course, those hares—creating a dynamic woodland ecosystem that feels like a thriving forest. With the addition of the new Alpine expansion, even more animals are introduced, adding variety and excitement.
The straightforward rules make the game easy to learn, with clear abilities written on each card, so there's no need to memorise complex symbols. If you're a wildlife lover who enjoys strategy and beautiful artwork, Forest Shuffle is a great thematic choice.
Cascadia by Pete Bartlam
Cascadia is a real place despite sounding like somewhere in Middle Earth.
It is a beautiful area in the NorthWest of the North American continent. Spanning the border between the US and Canada and rising up from the Pacific to the Rockies. From the Yukon in the North to Oregon and Idaho in the South. Sparkling rivers of crystal clear water tumble down through the rocks and boulders of the slopes of the snow-capped peaks of the Rocky Mountains. Rushing through vast forests of majestic pines before easing to gently wind through golden fields of wheat to meet the shores of the great Pacific Ocean.
Teeming with wildlife, Grizzly Bears and Roosevelt Elk roam the Forests and mountain slopes. The rivers sport the silver flash of the Chinook Salmon whilst the ubiquitous Red Fox wanders all over and the red-tailed Hawk sails majestically above in azure skies. So sets the scene for Randy Flynn’s paen to nature’s wonders in Cascadia the board game.
Adorned with Beth Sobel’s evocative art work it sees you breathe deeply as you put together your own linked tableau of habitats: Mountains, Forests, Prairies, Wetlands and Rivers and attract the resident fauna. You endeavour to match as many sides as possible of your terrain tiles whilst enabling the animal tokens placed there to be in scoring configurations.
The Grizzlies may be in mating pairs; the Elk strung out in long lines; Salmon swim round sinuous curves; the Fox surrounds itself with a diversity of other wildlife under the watchful gaze of the solitary Hawk high above. Each naturalist is building their own piece of heaven undisturbed by the works of others except when they take the habitat tile you needed to complete your American Eden.
So, wind down, relax and breeeeathe.
Ark Nova by Tim Evans
Of all of the games which bring animals to my table, Ark Nova is the Elephant in the room, both figuratively and quite literally. This game is huge! Just setting it all up, even with my upgraded storage solutions I invested in to make things easier. The boards take up the entirety of my coffee table, which is just short of a 1m square (bought especially for game nights!) and with any more than two players we would need to expand beyond that surface.
There is also a lot of moving parts to the game itself, with several scoring tracks to manage, cards to flip, sponsors, animals, zoo enclosure tiles. But when you get beyond the sheer volume of stuff it is a fantastic game with tons of possibilities for critical thinking and creative problem solving.
But you have to say the cards are the stars of the show. And there are more of them than almost any other game in my collection. Each card is dedicated to stunning photography of (mostly) gorgeous animals with the game’s icons taking a back seat the first time you look at them. And once you know the game well enough, the joy of drawing an eagle, bear, tiger or even elephant is heightened further, as you know these could be a game changer as well as a great image.
Although this was only a recent purchase back at this year’s UK Games Expo, it is already a firm favourite in my heart, even if my partner is often frustrated that I am tapping away at the online implementation of this game when she needs me to be doing anything else!
In The Footsteps of Darwin by Craig Smith
Who doesn’t love a nature themed game? They’re usually gorgeous productions with stunning artwork. Speil des Jahres nominee In the Footsteps of Darwin is no different.
It’s a very simple game about Charles Darwin’s adventures on board the HMS Beagle. On your turn you take a tile from those available on the row or column the Beagle has landed by.
You place the tile in your notebook, as this represents research you’ve done about the animal in question. Each animal has a class, as well as a colour which represents one of four continents. If you complete a set of one class or colour, then you publish your research.
There is also an action that allows you to add more theories to your notebook, therefore allowing you to gain more points. These work as objectives for you to work towards. The person who has conducted the best research is the winner.
Publishers Sorry We Are French really knocked the production out of the park on this one. Some of the little extras, like an appendix giving more information on each animal is a lovely touch. I found reading this as interesting as playing the game itself. The back of the board even has a map showing the origins of the species featured in the game.
If you have an animal lover in your family, this is a great choice. It’s ease of teach makes it a great game for gamers and non-gamers alike. It really is a lovely, simple and well-crafted game.
Wingspan by Sophie Jones
Could this list even be complete without mentioning Wingspan? This game is perfect for wildlife lovers, especially birdwatchers. With over 400 bird cards across all expansions, it's the ultimate game for those who want to learn about birds and their habitats while enjoying a relaxing gameplay experience.
In Wingspan, players aim to create a thriving nature preserve by placing birds in different habitats; forest, grassland, and wetland. To attract birds, players need to feed them using tokens gathered from the bird feeder, like berries, fish, mice, and worms. When a player activates a habitat, they trigger all the bird abilities in that area. This can lead to powerful combos, letting players gather more cards, food, or eggs.
Each round, players also work toward end of round and end of game objectives to score more points. These objectives vary, like having birds in the grasslands, placing birds that eat worms, or ending the game with lots of eggs. The variety keeps each game exciting, as players can adapt their strategies based on the cards they draw.
To make gameplay even better, each bird card includes interesting facts and features a beautiful hand-painted portrait. The game also comes with colourful boards, a 3D bird feeder, and tactile eggs, making it both fun and relaxing to play. So, put the binoculars away as Wingspan will bring the birds of the world right to your table.
There are so many wildlife-themed board games that if we tried to cover them all, we’d have enough for a novel. But if you’re looking to add a touch of nature to your collection, this selection is a great place to start. From the bird-filled preserves of Wingspan to building ecosystems in Cascadia and strategizing with woodland creatures in Forest Shuffle, each game offers its own way to bring the wonders of the wild to your table.
No matter your favourite animal or habitat, these games will help you connect with nature in a fun and meaningful way without leaving the comfort of home. So, why not step into nature and explore the wild through one of these fantastic games?