The best board games to gift (and play) this 2025 holiday season

Two-player games are great. Co-op games are great. What about both!? In Sky Team, two players represent a pilot and co-pilot trying to land a plane — and let me tell you, after a couple of rounds, you’ll understand why some people applaud after landing. Each round, you’ll both roll four dice and assign them to tasks in the cockpit. You’ll need to reduce your speed, deploy landing gear, communicate with the control tower and make sure you have enough coffee. My favorite thing about Sky Team is how quickly you and your partner get into a rhythm: by the end, you’ll be silently trusting each other to handle business, just like a real flight crew. There’s also a ton of replay value as you work up to increasingly difficult airports, including the final boss of Paro, Bhutan (if you get the chance to go there IRL, just take the bus).