Pandemic Legacy is no longer top of BoardGameGeek’s all-time rankings

After almost two years at the top of BoardGameGeek’s much-discussed overall rankings of the best games around, the first season of Pandemic Legacy has been usurped by a new number one.

Coming in hot is rival legacy title Gloomhaven, the ambitious roleplaying-lite epic created by Isaac Childres that whipped up a storm (and several million dollars) on Kickstarter before releasing last year. In our own glowing review, we gave the game our prestigious Editor's Choice award and said: "In many ways, it is everything the tabletop world has to offer brought together and combined into a hybrid of dizzying accomplishment."

After quickly rocketing its way through the rankings, Gloomhaven sat in second place for around a month before finally overtaking Pandemic Legacy: Season One right at the end of December, leaving Pandemic’s time at the top just shy of two years by a couple of days after it claimed the crown on January 1st 2016.

It’s only the sixth time that the best-rated game on the board game database has changed since the website began in 2000.

Pandemic took over from Twilight Struggle, which enjoyed a long run from December 2010 until the beginning of 2016. The head-to-head Cold War game was the newest game to claim the spot after Uwe Rosenberg classic Agricola held it for a couple of years, itself ending an impressive run of five years at the top by the similarly acclaimed Puerto Rico – although Andreas Seyfarth’s beloved 2002 hit returned to the number one position for a few months between March and December 2010.

Before Puerto Rico, it was ‘90s Reiner Knizia masterpiece Tigris & Euphrates in pole position, becoming only the second game to top the rankings after inaugural titleholder Paths of Glory – which now sits all the way down at number 89 in the overall list.

If you’re curious, Twilight Struggle sits today in fourth, with Puerto Rico once again ahead of Agricola in 14th (Agricola is hot on its heels just one step below) and Tigris & Euphrates having fallen to number 64.

Pandemic Legacy’s much anticipated second season has only made it just inside the Top 100 at number 91 at the time of writing, but it could yet rise to close the gap with its predecessor in coming months given that it’s only a few weeks out of the gate.

The overall top 10 currently stands as Gloomhaven, Pandemic Legacy: Season One, Through the Ages, Twilight Struggle, Star Wars: Rebellion, Terraforming Mars, Terra Mystica, Scythe, 7 Wonders: Duel and The Castles of Burgundy – will we see a new number one competitor sometime in 2018?